Swiss Post’s PostFinance unit achieves record customer growth

Swiss Post has said 100,000 new customers joined its financial services division, PostFinance, in the first nine months of this year. The company said there was a high level of customer confidence in its banking unit, with the customer growth higher than ever for the first three quarters of a year.

PostFinance now holds CHR 103bn in assets for its 2.9m customers, CHR 10.6bn more than it did last year. The company managed 4.5m accounts, about 200,000 more than at the end of 2011.

Profits at PostFinance have been CHR 499bn in the first three quarters of the year, up 7.8% on the same period last year.

The increased profit was achieved despite interest levels in the capital markets remaining at a historic low level.

The buoyant results come as Swiss Post is preparing to turn its banking division into a separate public company, supervised by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA). PostFinance will continue to be owned by Swiss Post, however.

FINMA is expected to issue a banking license for PostFinance at the end of this year.

Earlier this month the PostFinance Ltd board of directors was elected, to be chaired by Prof Dr Rolf Watter.

Swiss Post said under its new status as a public company, PostFinance will “remain true” to its business model and focus on the core business of payments and savings. Even with a banking license, Swiss Post said PostFinance will still be unable to issue its own loans and mortgages.

Swiss Post’s latest quarterly result will be published at the end of November.