Switzerland’s Post Finance bank introduces charges for retail deposits

Switzerland’s fifth biggest bank in terms of balance sheet, Post Finance, has introduced a charge, where the bank’s wealthiest clients with more than a million franc in deposit would face a once percent charge from 1st February next year. The move is significant in a sense that Swiss National Bank’s  (SNB) negative interest rates of 0.75 percent has finally started to sip into the economy but pushing the deposit return to negative. The bank said that it is aware that the move won’t be popular with clients as no one likes to pay more fees. Hence the move can be seen as a desperate one.

Since Swiss National Bank (SNB) grants exemption from negative rates to banks, only up to a certain limit, analysts at UBS bank believes that more and more banks would join in to pass on the ill effects of the negative interest rates.

If more and more banks continue to pose such levies, there could be an exodus of money from Switzerland, however, that will not happen unless the levies outweigh the benefits of keeping money in Switzerland.