Swiss Post reaches agreement with price regulator

Swiss Post and the price regulator have reached an agreement. Swiss Post will forego various planned price increases and lower the price of individual products. The price regulator opened formal proceedings against Swiss Post in February 2013. Both parties have now agreed on a compromise, which involves a variety of measures, offers customers price advantages and makes business transactions with Swiss Post more straightforward:

• Letter prices for A Mail and B Mail as well as domestic parcel prices will remain unchanged until the end of March 2016. The prices for A and B Mail have not been changed since 2004.
• From 1 April 2014, private customers will see a reduction in Swiss Post prices by 1.50 francs for return parcels to mail order companies, while fees charged for customs clearance on import ­consignments will go down by 50 centimes. At the same time, the “MiniPac International” (previously “Maxi letter International”) will be non-registered again and therefore available for 6 francs less than before. The new offer “Registered Mail Prepaid” was already introduced on 20 January 2014 at a reduced price of 5.50 francs.
• The one-time fee for establishing a permanent authorization is to be reduced by 6 francs and will cost 30 francs as of 1 April 2014. The cost of setting up a permanent authorization online remains unchanged at 24 francs.
• Each household in Switzerland will receive four stamps worth one franc each in 2014.
• Economical bulk mailings are going to be made more accessible to business customers and the cost of address correction services will be reduced. Individual advance payments are to go up in price. In addition, the design scope for business letters will be expanded.

Last year, Swiss Post had not raised prices as planned on forwarding services and newspaper deliveries, despite deficits connected with these products. Similarly, in October 2013, Swiss Post abolished the annually occurring fee of 24 francs for permanent authorizations and introduced a single authorization which is free of charge.

The compromise that has been reached with the price regulator will avoid going into lengthy proceedings. As already announced on a number of occasions, Swiss Post’s profits are expected to decrease significantly in the coming years. The reasons for this are the steady decrease in letter volume, growing competition in the logistics business and the tax liability that is required due to Swiss Post’s conversion into a public limited company.