The Swiss National Bank (SNB) announced today that it will increase the key interest rate by 0.75 percentage points to 0.5 percent as of 23 September 2022. PostFinance is responding to this adjustment by cancelling the customer asset fee for affected customers from 1 October 2022.

Today’s decision by the SNB to exit the negative interest rate environment has prompted PostFinance to cancel the customer asset fee for affected private and business customers from 1 October 2022. The adjustment will be made automatically; customers do not have to do anything. For major and institutional customers, the adjustment of the interest rate conditions will already come into effect on 23 September 2022. The major customers affected will be informed directly.

Due to the persistently negative market interest rates in recent years, the interest differential business – PostFinance’s most important earnings pillar – has been under constant pressure. The ongoing low interest situation is weighing on interest margins. PostFinance had already reacted to the SNB’s interest rate hike in June and adjusted the customer asset fee to -0.25 percent. This meant private customers with an account balance of 100,000 francs or more paid a customer asset fee of -0.25 percent as of 1 July 2022. The thresholds for customer asset fees for business customers were still calculated individually.