The Swiss National Bank (SNB) announced on 15 December that it would raise the key rate to 1 percent as of 16 December 2022. PostFinance is responding to this change and will be raising interest rates on savings and retirement savings accounts 3a from 1 February 2023.
PostFinance wants its customers to benefit from the rise in interest rates with an interest rate increase on individual products as of 1 February 2023: from this date, customers will receive interest of 0.40% on savings accounts up to a balance of CHF 25,000. On the youth savings account, the new rate will be 0.75% up to CHF 25,000. From this date, PostFinance will pay 0.3% interest on the 3a retirement savings account.
“We want to give something back to our customers who have remained loyal to us during the difficult years with zero or even negative interest rates,” explains Hansruedi Köng, CEO of PostFinance. “With the agreed adjustments, a majority of our customers will benefit from higher interest rates”. Mr Köng outlines a scenario which would ultimately benefit PostFinance’s customers: “As the interest rate situation normalizes, we assume that PostFinance will expand the interest margin to a level of 70 to 80 basis points in the medium term. This is significantly lower than our competitors’ margins, but we want our customers to benefit from the rise in interest rates”. Given the current trend of rising interest rates, PostFinance will review further interest rate increases on an ongoing basis.