Account closure by banks - numbers and anecdotes

Banks, Insurances & Third Pillar
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This is my attempt to collect some (semi-)hard numbers about account closures by banks in Switzerland.

A previous post in this forum lists three links to media coverage:

Unfortunately, I don’t have access to the article of Le Temps, so I don’t know if they have numbers.
The 24 heures basically quotes Blick. The Blick article quotes reports from the Ombudsman. However, the Ombudsman does not get involved when banks close their clients’ accounts, so the Blick numbers are not relevant for this topic.

Another post in this forum quotes an SRF report:

Unfortunately, this report does not contain any numbers.

I then found this article:

It mentions an increase in reports from banks to the Meldestelle für Geldwäscherei (MROS), doubling within two years.
The article also mentions an information ban:

Kundenbeziehungen aufzukündigen sei sehr unangenehm, weil man einem Informationsverbot unterliege. «Wir dürfen die wahren Gründe für die Kündigungen nicht nennen, sondern berufen uns einfach auf die allgemeinen Geschäftsbedingungen. Das stösst bei den Betroffenen natürlich auf grosses Unverständnis.»

The article then makes a conclusion, based on the number of reports to MROS:

Wenn man unterstellt, dass die meisten Banken jene Kundenbeziehungen beenden, die sie bei der MROS melden, kommt es in der Schweiz also jährlich zu Tausenden von Kontokündigungen ohne Angabe von Gründen.

Still, there are no hard numbers about account closures available.

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UBS closed my accounts
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I can’t imagine the banks would disclose that information.

But if you have time, perhaps you could ask the ombudsman? I mean, they don’t have any hard figures either (I would guess), but they might be able to say whether the number of complaints to the ombudsman in this regard has increased in recent years/months or not.

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Maybe I could ask as representing the MP forum :zany_face:
On a more serious note, I guess that the ombudsman would be very cautious about giving information on topics that he does not consider within his mandate.

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Perhaps, the financial sector is a bit secretive anyway :sweat_smile:. I listen to SRF Espresso and SRF Kassensturz regularly. There the ombudsman for air passenger rights has stated multiple times that complaints against airlines are on the rise. But then again: it’s a different sector.

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In a similar topic, the Federal Supreme court recently gave a judgement.

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Yes, but PostFinance is different.

The Postal Services Act and the Postal Ordinance define what the universal service includes and which quantitative and qualitative requirements must be satisfied. Swiss Post must offer the payment transactions service included in the universal service to all physical and legal persons based in Switzerland.

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At least when it comes to banks, there is Postfinance which is required to provide basic services…and there is cash, so you can at least make basic transactions without banks. But there are other financial services where you don’t have those luxuries. For example, basic third-party liability car insurance is obligatory for all cars that drive on public roads, but there is no insurance provider with a government mandate to provide this service to all Swiss-registered cars. So if you don’t get accepted by private insurance companies based on their proprietary criteria, you can’t drive. Curious…these crossovers between government and the private sector.

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Banks in Switzerland can basically end the relationship whenever they want without giving you a reason. I remember reading that the Ombudsman won’t even step in for these cases. It’s frustrating but legally they are covered by Article 404 of the Code of Obligations.

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Can’t find it.

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Today is May 1st, not April 1st.

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It is art. 404 of the Swiss Code of Obligations, though. :wink:
Feature 404: Page found.

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