Balance sheet
The aggregate balance sheet total of all banks in Switzerland grew by 1.3% in 2024. A decline among the big banks was offset by an increase for the other categories.
The balance sheet total of banks in Switzerland grew by 1.3% from CHF 3,117.0 bn in 2023 to CHF 3,219.1 bn in 2024. Mortgage loans remained the largest item by far on the asset side. Most asset items showed an increase year-on-year, ranging from 2.4% for mortgage loans to 24.9% for amounts due from securities financing transactions. The largest fall, 12.9%, was recorded by liquid assets. This was probably due to the correction of excess liquidity at the big banks. On the liabilities side, there was no further rotation from sight deposits to time deposits, both of which posted moderate gains (2.4% and 4.8% respectively). Total amounts due in respect of customer deposits thus grew by 5.3%.
The big banks’ balance sheet total fell sharply once again, albeit to a lesser degree than in 2023. The cantonal banks, meanwhile, increased their balance sheet total by a similar percentage. The volume of domestic lending edged up again, this time by 2.3%, thanks to domestic mortgage loans, which increased by 2.5% to a new high of CHF 1,208.6 bn. Other loans, both secured and unsecured, were also higher, but only by 1.1%. As in 2023, the cantonal banks had the largest slice of the domestic mortgage market, at 40.1%, followed by the big banks on 24.4%.
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Trends in 2024
Balance sheet trends by bank category
The aggregate balance sheet total of all banks in Switzerland grew by 1.3% in 2024. Decreases of 2.7% for the big banks and 0.8% for the private bankers were offset by increases for all of the other categories. The biggest rises were posted by the stock exchange banks (up 7.8%) and the cantonal banks (up 4.0%), with the latter accounting for around 72.2% of the overall increase. The big banks still held on to the largest share of the aggregate balance sheet total with 38.4%, compared with 40.0% in 2023 and 41.2% in 2022.
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Assets
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Mortgage loans remained the largest asset item, making up 38.2% of the total. After stabilising in 2023, liquid assets recorded the largest relative drop on the asset side in 2024, falling by 12.9%. Amounts due from securities financing transactions as well as trading portfolios in securities and precious metals contributed most to the increase in assets.
Domestic and foreign mortgage loans rose by CHF 28.9 bn year-on-year in 2024, from CHF 1,200.2 bn to CHF 1,229.1 bn. Lower interest rates caused growth to pick up somewhat compared with 2023, but it was not quite back up at the 2022 level. With a share of around 38.2%, mortgage loans thus remained the largest asset item for banks in Switzerland last year. This share only changed minimally compared with 2023 because most other asset items showed either an increase or only a minimal decrease. Liquid assets were an exception here, falling sharply and thus making up just 14.8%, the same as amounts due from customers. This reflects a marked decline of 6.6% in banks’ sight deposits at the SNB, probably due to the correction of excess liquidity held by the big banks as a buffer for potential risks arising from the takeover of Credit Suisse. Amounts due from customers, i.e. loans, fell by CHF 7.0 bn or 1.4% in 2024, while amounts due from banks grew by CHF 26.0 bn or 13.9%. This was mostly the result of a sharp rise in amounts due from domestic banks (up 25.0%), together with a small increase of CHF 2.7 bn or 2.9% in amounts due from foreign banks. These were mostly caused by banks’ changing liquidity needs as interest rates fell. Amounts due from securities financing transactions recorded the strongest growth of all asset items in 2024, rising by 24.9%. Financial investments declined for the second year in a row, by 3.5%, with domestic financial investments down 12.1% and those abroad up 3.9%. The main reason for the balance sheet shortening was the distinctly positive trend among all categories apart from the big banks. The domestically oriented banks were able to extend their balance sheets: the Raiffeisen banks by 2.9%, the regional and cantonal banks by around 4%.
Breakdown of assets over time
The breakdown of assets has changed substantially over the past decade. Liquid assets rose sharply from CHF 425.9 bn in 2014 to CHF 760.6 bn in 2021, driven by two factors: the SNB’s currency interventions to weaken the overvalued Swiss franc increased the banks’ sight deposits, and the opportunity cost of holding cash due to low interest rates was minimal, so banks parked large amounts of liquidity in sight deposits with the SNB. Liquid assets saw their first sharp decline in 2022, falling by 29.8% in the wake of interest rate hikes. They stabilised temporarily in 2023 with a 2.4% increase but showed another sharp fall of 12.9% in 2024. There was also a trend reversal in amounts due from customers. This item had fluctuated slightly in the period from 2014 to 2021 between CHF 573.3 bn (2016) and CHF 652.9 bn (2014) but dropped significantly in both 2022 and 2023. The downtrend continued in 2024 but was much less pronounced with a fall of just 1.4%. Amounts due from customers thus declined by a total of 27.2% between 2014 and 2024. Amounts due from banks, meanwhile, saw their share of total assets fall from 14.7% in 2014 to just 6.6% in 2024. Banks have been deliberately scaling back this asset item in order to reduce interdependencies with other institutions. Domestic and foreign mortgage loans grew steadily from CHF 916.6 bn in 2014 to CHF 1,229.1 bn in 2024, thereby increasing their share of total assets from 30.2% to 38.2%. Years of low interest rates contributed to a rise in property sales and prices. As rates fell again in 2024, this trend continued.
Domestic lending volume
The volume of domestic lending increased by around 2.3% in 2024. Mortgage loans, most of which are granted to private households, make up the bulk of the Swiss lending business with a share of 86.7%.
The volume of outstanding domestic loans came to CHF 1,393.3 bn in 2024. This comprises secured and unsecured loans to customers (CHF 184.7 bn, including companies, public-sector entities and consumer loans) as well as mortgage loans (CHF 1,208.6 bn) and equates to a year-on-year increase of 2.3%, slightly below the average for the last five years.
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Mortgage loans have increased by CHF 307.8 bn since 2014, taking their share of domestic lending volume from 84% to 86.7%. Total outstanding mortgage loans increased by 2.4% to CHF 1,229.1 bn in 2024. Over 98% of this was attributable to domestic customers. Fixed-rate mortgages accounted for 75.1%, up 1.7 percentage points year-on-year. According to the Federal Office for Housing, the average interest rate on outstanding domestic mortgage loans fell from 1.72% to 1.53% in 2024. Higher interest rates than in prior years had led to below-average growth in mortgage loans. In a multi-year comparison, mortgages with a term of more than five years had become more popular. Their share rose steadily from 23.6% in 2014 to 27.1% in 2022. This was followed in 2023 and 2024 by a marked fall to 22.4% as a result of interest rate hikes and growth in variable-rate new mortgages. In terms of volume, 60.7% of all new mortgages were granted to private households at the end of 2024, this figure having been mostly above 66% prior to 2023. Between the fourth quarters of 2023 and 2024, the volume of owner-occupied residential properties for which new mortgages were granted to private households rose by 14.0%, while the volume of residential properties rented out by private households grew by 16.0%. The volume of residential properties rented out by companies likewise increased, adding 22.4% during the period. The cantonal banks’ overall share of the domestic mortgage loan market was 40.1% at the end of 2024, slightly higher than the year-back figure. The big banks were in second place with 23.4%. The cantonal and Raiffeisen banks in particular have increased their shares in recent years, whereas the big banks, regional banks and savings banks lost out. The negative trend for the big banks continued in 2024 with a fall of 1.5 percentage points. The cantonal banks increased their share by a further percentage point, the Raiffeisen banks by 0.4 of a point, and even the regional and savings banks bucked the long-term trend with a marginal rise of 0.2 of a percentage point. Pension funds and insurers accounted for around 6% of the mortgage market. Broken down by lending group, some 94.3% of domestic mortgage loans were categorised as senior (up to two thirds of the property’s market value) in 2024. This is exactly the same figure as in 2023. This high proportion suggests that lenders are continuing to pursue cautious mortgage lending policies.
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Liabilities
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Amounts due in respect of customer deposits made up more than half of all liabilities in 2024. There was a relatively sharp fall in bond issues, central mortgage institution loans and cash bonds (down 15.5%), while most other liability items showed an increase. Trading portfolio liabilities were out in front with a gain of 13.8%.
The balance sheet item “amounts due in respect of customer deposits”, which is the sum of sight deposits, time deposits and other customer deposit liabilities, grew by CHF 91.9 bn or 5.3% in 2024. This item made up 58.8% of the balance sheet total at the end of last year. The fairly modest increase stemmed from all of the constituent liabilities. Sight deposits showed a slight rise of 2.4%, while time deposits were up 4.8%. Domestic assets increased their share of total sight deposits from 59.8% in 2021 to 73.9% in 2024. Amounts due to banks rose by CHF 15.2 bn in 2024, mainly due to a CHF 16.7 bn increase in amounts due to foreign banks. This was driven to a significant degree by the Raiffeisen banks with growth of CHF 8.3 bn and the cantonal banks with CHF 9.6 bn. Trading portfolio liabilities were CHF 3.9 bn higher at CHF 31.9 bn. Bond issues, central mortgage institution loans and cash bonds, meanwhile, were CHF 62.2 bn lower, mainly due to a drop of CHF 57.9 bn in foreign bond issues and central mortgage institution loans, which are exclusively held by the big banks. However, the domestic figure was also down by CHF 19.2 bn. These massive declines may have been caused by the early redemption of two Credit Suisse bond issues by UBS in September 2024 and the sharp rise in spreads on central mortgage institution loans during the year, which made new issues more expensive.
Breakdown of liabilities over time
The proportion of liabilities accounted for by amounts due to banks fell from 13.1% in 2014 to 12.5% in 2024. As with the assets side, this shows that banks’ interdependencies, particularly with other banks in Switzerland, have been reduced over time. Having dropped sharply between 2020 and 2022, sight deposits rose back to CHF 843.4 bn in 2024, almost on a par with the 2014 figure of CHF 873.8 bn. They therefore remained the largest liability item with a 26.2% share at the end of 2024, which is in line with the year-back figure. Time deposits made up 16.1% in 2024, up from 15.6% in 2023 and almost twice as high as in 2014, having mostly been some way below 10% up to 2022. Low interest rates made time deposits less attractive than sight deposits, leading in many cases to a rotation out of the former and into the latter. This trend reversed when interest rates started rising again in 2022, with funds flooding back into time deposits from sight deposits. Time deposits have even increased their share marginally, by 0.5 of a percentage point, since the latest round of rate cuts began.
Balance sheet stable in first half of 2025
The aggregate balance sheet total of the banks in Switzerland remained constant during the first half of 2025. On the assets side, financial investments, mortgage loans and liquid assets showed moderate growth, while amounts due from banks and customers and trading portfolios fell sharply in some cases. On the liabilities side, trading portfolios recorded the strongest growth, and there was a slight increase in bond issues, central mortgage institution loans and cash bonds. Customer deposits, liabilities to banks and equity capital declined.
The aggregate balance sheet total of the banks in Switzerland remained at a constant level in the first five months of 2025, falling by just 0.2% to CHF 3,323.3 bn. Most of this fall was attributable to a 7.0% drop in trading portfolios in securities and precious metals. By May, these had only recouped some of the losses suffered when the US tariff announcements sent the markets sharply lower. That said, they stood at CHF 173.0 bn after the first five months of the year, well above the level seen in 2023. An increase of CHF 17 bn or 1.4% in mortgage loans in particular prevented a more pronounced decrease in the aggregate balance sheet total. This was probably helped by low interest rates. Financial investments posted the largest percentage increase, rising by 2.5% to CHF 290.6 bn in the first half-year. Liquid assets were up 1.7%. Both items thus succeeded in reversing their negative trends from 2024.
The remaining asset items were negative in the first half of 2025, with decreases ranging from 0.3% for amounts due from banks to 4.8% for other assets. Amounts due from banks thus failed to continue last year’s very positive trend, as did amounts due from securities financing transactions, which fell by 2.3% in the first five months of the year. On the liabilities side, we can see two opposing trends. While several items showed a moderate fall, led by equity capital (down 2.6%), two items increased. The rise in trading portfolio liabilities was the most pronounced at 29.3%. This is likely to be the result of high market volatility. The positive trend seen in 2024 was thus clearly maintained, and the figure of CHF 41.2 bn from the end of May 2025 was significantly higher than the full-year figures for the period from 2014 to 2024. After falling sharply from 2021 onwards, sight deposits rebounded slightly in 2024. This positive trend continued into the first half of 2025 with a rise of 5.3% to CHF 901.0 bn. Time deposits, meanwhile, headed in the opposite direction. After growing steadily for a number of years, they shed a full 13.5% in the first five months of this year to stand at CHF 455.8 bn at the end of May. The sharpest decline occurred in March, when the SNB cut its policy rate from 0.50% to 0.25%, diminishing the appeal of fixed-term investments.