2023-12-20 06:38:12
ZKB wants to attract customers with fee-free banking
Zürcher Kantonalbank is creating a new offering for digital banking. There are no annual fees for debit cards and up to three private accounts.
Headquarters of the Zürcher Kantonalbank ZKB in Zurich, photographed on April 18, 2018.
Photo: Gaetan Bally (Keystone)
The Zürcher Kantonalbank is daring to do something new: from January 1st, annual fees for private accounts and debit cards will be abolished. A digital banking offering is being launched for this purpose. Specifically, each person can have up to two debit cards, three private accounts as well as savings accounts, eBanking, mobile banking and TWINT without fees.
In total, the annual savings amount to up to CHF 116, the ZKB promises in a statement on Wednesday morning. “It doesn’t matter which channels and services are preferred: whether digitally via smartphone or physically in a branch – the annual fees mentioned are waived for all private customers.”
Existing customers will automatically benefit from January 1, 2024. New customers can receive the offer from the same date. Previously, the annual fee for a private account was 12 francs and for a Visa debit card 40 francs.
Record profit last year
“We want to send a signal and give back our success in the spirit of our performance mandate,” ZKB boss Urs Baumann explained the step in the statement. The reduction in fees is also likely to be related to the bank’s extraordinary success this year. In the first half of 2023, the bank made a record profit of 541 million francs – not least because of the increased interest rates.
When asked by the AWP news agency, a spokesman was unable to say what costs the bank would incur as a result of the elimination of fees. According to the «Blick», who first reported on the innovations, fees of at least 36 million francs would be eliminated for around 700,000 private customers.
Baumann does not want to see this step as a declaration of war against other cantonal banks. “If anything, this is a declaration of war on the digital banks,” he is quoted as saying.
SDA/Felix Müller
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