With cheeky poses and attractive conditions, more and more smartphone banks are pushing into the local market. Can you turn Swiss banking upside down?
Self-confidence does not lack the challenger. “Neon tells the established banks to fight”, said the Zurich-based fintech of the same name on today’s Tuesday. As well as finews.ch reported, the young company has now launched its own account app after a trial period. In keeping with this, the corresponding advertising campaign operates with a stretched middle finger (see picture above).
Even without the cheeky pose becomes clear: In 2019, smartphone banks, which in other European countries have long been regarded as serious “challengers”, are definitely gaining a foothold in Switzerland.
N26 just before the jump
Not only local players compete for the local clientele. It was recently announced that the German mobile bank N26 wants to start in Switzerland in two to three months. N26 is now valued at 2.7 billion euros and thus more weighty than some Swiss regional bank.
According to N26, around 10,000 Swiss customers are interested in the offer – in addition to the approximately 2.3 million users that the Mobilbank claims to already have today. More than 50,000 customers in this country want to have the British Fintech Revolut, Europe’s largest banking challenge in the area of payments.
The first smartphone bank in Switzerland, the banking app Zak from Bank Cler, has a total of 14,000 users.
«We do not pay manager bonuses»
The challengers follow the same pattern. They attract with low fees and easy handling. This is possible because, thanks to digital processes, they can streamline structures and keep costs down.
Or, as Neon advertises: “We have no branches or counters, do no risk trades and do not pay manager bonuses. That’s why there are no basic fees and only a few, clear conditions. ”
Get rid of the boys
The number of bank apps is still too small to diagnose the great revolution of Swiss banking. However, there are already some interesting tendencies.
So Zak has managed to mobilize the growing generations. Almost two-thirds of App customers are younger than 35 years. And, more importantly, 90 percent of Zak users are new customers for parent company Cler. With a view to sustainability, no Swiss retail bank should be able to ignore these figures.
The crux with the black zero
It is less clear whether the smartphone banks will find operational footfall. The new providers have lean structures, but they burn a lot of capital in customer acquisition. Starting with lock offers, they usually try to offer more expensive services to a “premium” segment. But until then, the least smartphone banks earn money – even the top dogs Revolut and N26 are still waiting for the black zero.
Nevertheless, the activities of Zak, Neon, N26 and Revolut in the local market in 2019 are likely to get moving. And that probably in favor of bank customers. Given the submission of the mobile challengers are high basic charges and over weeks expiring account openings simply can not be justified. Or, to put it blatantly like neon: From the clientele there is then the middle finger.
Also published on Medium.