Over the past two years, mobile banking has developed strongly in Switzerland, overtaking e-banking as the most popular transactional and delivery channel.

This industry is seeing the emergence of leaders, among which banking incumbents Zurcher Kantonalbank and Luzerner Kantonalbank, a new report by the Lucerne School of Business Institute of Financial Services Zug (IFZ) says.

The report, released on February 19, 2024, shares findings of an analysis of mobile banking apps in Switzerland. It looked at the customer reviews of the mobile apps of 38 of the largest retail banks in the country and digital banking players in both the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store to determine the providers who are excelling in digital experience.

The findings show that despite growing competition from market entrants, banking incumbents are performing well and living up to the challenge. In fact, the two highest ranked mobile banking apps in Switzerland are those of Zurcher Kantonalbank and Luzerner Kantonalbank. These apps achieved a weighted average score across the two app stores of 4.80 and 4.74 out of 5, respectively.

Behind them are the mobile apps of Wise and Revolut, as well as UBS Switzerland and Berner Kantonalbank, with a score of 4.7 out of 5 each, showcasing that Swiss banks are successfully facing the challenge posed by new market entrants and demonstrating both competence and resilience.

The analysis also reveals that several banks have increased their performances significantly since 2022. Berner Kantonalbank recorded the strongest growth between September 2022 and February 2024, gaining 1.76 points in its rating. Berner Kantonalbank is followed by St. Galler Kantonalbank, UBS Switzerland and VZ Depotbank with increases of 0.9 points, 0.52 points and 0.51 points, respectively. These findings suggest that Swiss banks are continuously striving to enhance their mobile platforms in order to provide superior experiences to their customers.

Findings of the IFZ analysis are similar to those of the 2022 Digital Index and Performance of Swiss Players report by Colombus Consulting. The study, which evaluated the digitalization of customer experience in Swiss retail banking, shows that traditional banking institutions are outperforming digital challengers in terms of digital presence, engagement, social media, and app usage in Switzerland.

In 2022, UBS retained the top position in digitization efforts, demonstrating strong performance across social networks, web, and digital marketing. PostFinance followed closely with a focus on marketing and satisfactory web and mobile performance but a lack in social networking. Raiffeisen ranked third with excellent web performance but lower scores in social media and marketing. Credit Suisse maintained a balanced profile, ranking fourth.

Mobile banking on the rise in Switzerland

In Switzerland, banks are making significant efforts to provide their customers with improved mobile banking experiences. This is happening as more people are using mobile devices to carry out transactions and access banking services.

A 2023 study conducted by IFZ and digital banking think tank e.foresight reveals that digital banking has evolved greatly in Switzerland over the past years, with mobile banking emerging as the preferred channel for customers.

The joint research, released in May 2023, polled 29 institutions in Switzerland to examine how widespread e-banking and mobile banking are among Swiss bank customers and explore the development of digital banking in the country.

It reveals that up until 2020, e-banking was the favored channel for Swiss customers, recording the largest share of customer logins. In 2020, however, the number of logins for e-banking and mobile banking were almost equal, signaling the beginning of a shift. And by the end of 2022, mobile banking had surpassed e-banking, with 62% of logins being done by a smartphone.

Estimates by IFZ suggest that customer logins in e-banking increased by an average of 1.43% per year between 2018 and December 2022. In contrast, customer logins via smartphones surged by over 33% per year during the same period.

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