Balance sheet
The aggregate balance sheet total of all banks in Switzerland fell by 0.9% in 2025. A decline among the big banks was largely offset by an increase for all other categories.
After growing in 2024, the balance sheet total of banks in Switzerland contracted slightly in 2025, falling by CHF 27.8 bn or 0.9% to CHF 3,191.3 bn. Mortgage loans remained the largest item by far on the asset side. Year-on-year trends in the individual asset items were mixed. Increases ranged from 0.7% for trading portfolios in securities and precious metals to 10.3% for financial investments, while decreases ranged from 1.4% for liquid assets to 21.4% for amounts due from securities financing transactions. Amounts due from customers were unchanged compared with the prior year. On the liabilities side, there was a shift from time deposits (down 23.5%) into sight deposits (up 14.5%). This is primarily attributable to the zero interest rate policy and high levels of geopolitical uncertainty, an environment that favours sight deposits over time deposits. Total amounts due in respect of customer deposits showed marginal growth of 0.3%. The big banks’ balance sheet total fell sharply once again, as it had in the previous year, which had a significant effect on the figure for the industry as a whole. All other bank categories increased their balance sheet total – most notably the private bankers with a gain of 15.8%. The volume of domestic lending rose by a further 2.5%, thanks in particular to domestic mortgage loans, which increased by 3.0% to a new high of CHF 1,244.8 bn. Other loans, both secured and unsecured, showed a slight fall of 0.8%. As in 2024, the cantonal banks had the largest slice of the domestic mortgage market, at 40.4%, followed by the big banks on 22.7%.
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Trends in 2025
Balance sheet trends by bank category
The aggregate balance sheet total of all banks in Switzerland fell slightly by 0.9% in 2025. This was entirely due to an 8.6% reduction in the big banks’ balance sheet total. All other bank categories posted an increase, with the private bankers (15.8%) and the Raiffeisen banks (5.7%) performing best. The big banks continued to account for the largest share of the aggregate balance sheet total with 35.4%, although this is significantly lower than in previous years as a result of the aforementioned reduction (2022: 41.2%; 2023: 40.0%; 2024: 38.4%).
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Assets
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Mortgage loans remained the largest asset item, accounting for 39.6% of total assets. The biggest relative increase was recorded by financial investments (up 10.3%). With amounts due from securities financing transactions and other assets in particular declining, total assets were slightly lower.
Domestic and foreign mortgage loans increased by CHF 35.1 bn year-on-year in 2025 from CHF 1,229.1 bn to CHF 1,264.3 bn. As in 2024, growth accelerated slightly to 2.9% due to low interest rates, although it was still below the 2022 figure of 3.5%. Mortgage loans remained the largest asset item by far for banks in Switzerland with a share of 39.6%. This figure was higher because most other asset items either grew only minimally or declined. Financial investments were an exception here, recording the biggest gain of all (10.3%) on the back of market movements. Domestic financial investments were the main driver, gaining 16.7%, but foreign financial investments were also higher (up 5.6%). Liquid assets were down by only 1.4% year-on-year after a 12.9% fall in 2024. Banks’ sight deposits with the SNB make up a substantial share of liquid assets, and they followed a similar trend, remaining almost unchanged (up 0.1%) in 2025 after a drop of 6.6% in 2024. Amounts due from customers, i.e. loans, were stable compared with the previous year at CHF 475.2 bn. The biggest decrease was recorded for amounts due from securities financing transactions, which fell by 21.4% to CHF 149.5 bn, a similar level to that seen in 2023. This was mainly driven by a decline for the big banks, with the other categories showing mixed trends. Amounts due from banks were also lower in 2025, but their fall of 5.2% was much weaker than the 13.9% rise in 2024, as a result of which they remained well above the 2023 low at CHF 201.8 bn. This was due in particular to a decline of 9.1% in amounts due from foreign banks, whereas amounts due from domestic banks fell by only 2.0%.
Breakdown of assets over time
The breakdown of assets has changed substantially over the past decade. Liquid assets rose sharply from CHF 468.9 bn in 2015 to CHF 760.6 bn in 2021, driven by two factors: firstly, the SNB’s interventions to bolster the franc by buying foreign currency increased its counterparties’ sight deposits in CHF; secondly, the opportunity cost of holding cash was minimal due to low interest rates, 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. This trend persisted in 2025 with a slight fall of 1.4%. There was also a trend reversal in amounts due from customers. This item had fluctuated slightly in the period from 2014 to 2021, peaking at CHF 652.9 bn in 2014 and reaching a low of CHF 573.3 bn in 2016, 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 were stable in 2025 and thus declined by a total of 20.0% between 2015 and 2025. Amounts due from banks, meanwhile, saw their share of total assets fall from 9.0% in 2015 to just 6.3% in 2025. Banks have been deliberately scaling back this asset item in order to reduce interdependencies with other institutions and thus also counterparty risk. Domestic and foreign mortgage loans rose continually from CHF 943.3 bn in 2015 to CHF 1,264.3 bn in 2025, boosting their share of total assets from 31.2% at the end of 2015 to 39.6% at the end of 2025. Years of low interest rates contributed to a rise in property sales and prices. As rates were low again in 2024, this trend continued.
Domestic lending volume
The volume of domestic lending increased by around 2.5% in 2025. Mortgage loans, most of which are granted to private households, make up the bulk of the Swiss lending business with a share of 87.1%.
The volume of outstanding domestic loans was up 2.5% at CHF 1,428.7 bn in 2025. This comprises secured and unsecured loans to customers (CHF 183.9 bn, including companies, public-sector entities and consumer loans) as well as mortgage loans (CHF 1,244.8 bn). The growth rate of outstanding domestic loans is roughly in line with the average from the last five years.
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Mortgage loans have increased by CHF 320.1 bn since 2015, taking their share of domestic lending volume from 85.9% to 87.1%. Total outstanding mortgage loans increased by 2.9% in 2025 to CHF 1,264.3 bn. The vast majority of this (CHF 1,244.8 bn) was attributable to domestic customers. Fixed-rate mortgages accounted for 73.7%, down 1.5 percentage points year-on-year. According to the Federal Office for Housing, the average interest rate on outstanding domestic mortgage loans fell from 1.53% to 1.32% in 2025. Following a turnaround that sent interest rates temporarily higher in 2023 and 2024, they fell back again in 2025 to a level more or less in line with that from the start of 2023. Lower rates led to a renewed upturn in mortgage loan growth compared with the two preceding years. In a long-term comparison, mortgages with a term of more than five years have become less popular. Their share rose from 25.5% in 2015 to 27.1% in 2022, but rate hikes and growth in new variable-rate mortgages caused it to fall significantly in 2023 and 2024, and it stood at 22.4% in 2024. This decline continued in 2025 despite rates heading downwards again, bringing the share to 20.1%. In terms of volume, 64.1% of all new mortgages were granted to private households at the end of 2025. This figure was actually significantly higher for most of the year and reached 66%, a level last seen prior to 2023. During this period, the volume of owner-occupied residential properties for which new mortgages were granted to private households rose by 7.3%, while the volume of residential properties rented out by private households fell by 3.8%. The volume of residential properties rented out by companies likewise decreased over the same period, dropping by 19.4%. The cantonal banks’ overall share of the domestic mortgage loan market was 40.4% at the end of 2025, slightly higher than the year-back figure. The big banks were in second place with 22.7%. 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. These trends continued in 2025 for the big, cantonal and Raiffeisen banks, whereas the shares of regional and savings banks remained unchanged. The big banks posted a fall of 0.7 of a percentage point, while the cantonal and Raiffeisen banks each increased their respective market share by 0.3 of a point. Broken down by lending group, some 94.8% of domestic mortgage loans were categorised as senior (up to two thirds of the property’s market value) in 2025. This was 0.5 of a percentage point higher than in 2024. 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 2025. Compared with 2024, there was a marked shift from time deposits to sight deposits and a sharp rise in trading portfolio liabilities (up 35.3%), with other liability items posting moderate increases or decreases.
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, recorded marginal growth of CHF 6.1 bn or 0.3% in 2025. This item made up 59.5% of the balance sheet total at the end of last year. Within its components, a marked shift from time deposits to sight deposits was discernible. A fall of CHF 121.6 bn or 23.5% in time deposits was completely offset by a rise of CHF 122.4 bn or 14.5% in sight deposits. This was caused by time deposits losing their appeal following the SNB’s return to a zero interest rate policy and sight deposits becoming more attractive in an uncertain geopolitical environment. Domestic assets have increased their share of total sight deposits from 69.6% in 2022 to 76.0%. Amounts due to banks fell by CHF 14.0 bn or 3.5% in 2025, mainly due to a CHF 12.4 bn drop in amounts due to domestic banks. By contrast, amounts due to foreign banks fell by around CHF 1.6 bn. The biggest negative effects both nationally and internationally came from the big banks (domestic: down CHF 8.3 bn; foreign: down CHF 6.1 bn) and the cantonal banks (domestic: down CHF 3.0 bn; foreign: down CHF 2.2 bn). The fact that amounts due to foreign banks only showed a moderate decrease is due in particular to an increase of CHF 5.1 bn posted by the foreign banks. Trading portfolio liabilities showed the strongest growth of all liability items in 2025, rising by CHF 11.2 bn to CHF 43.1 bn. This was almost exclusively attributable to the big banks, probably as a result of higher trading volumes and changes in the composition and valuation of trading portfolios. There were also small increases in other amounts due in respect of customer deposits (up 1.0% at CHF 535.3 bn) and the item “bond issues, central mortgage institution loans and cash bonds” (up 1.2% at CHF 343.3 bn). The latter was due in particular to a rise of CHF 21.5 bn in domestic bonds and central mortgage institution loans, which more than compensated for the CHF 16.6 bn fall in the corresponding foreign figure. This fall was essentially due to the big banks, since they are the only category holding foreign bonds and central mortgage institution loans.
Breakdown of liabilities over time
The proportion of liabilities accounted for by amounts due to banks rose from 11.4% in 2015 to 12.2% in 2025. Overall, therefore, interdependencies between banks have increased slightly over the past decade, although the trend has fluctuated considerably during that period. Sight deposits returned to pre-pandemic levels in 2023 but then showed a sharp rise in 2025, in particular due to lower interest rates, which prompted a rotation from time deposits into sight deposits. At CHF 965.9 bn, sight deposits reached their highest level since 2015 – if we ignore the exceptionally high volumes seen during the COVID-19 pandemic. As in 2024, they remain the largest liability item with a 30.3% share. The share of total liabilities made up by time deposits fell sharply from 16.1% in 2024 to 12.4% in 2025 but was nevertheless still twice as high as in 2015, when it was just 6.0%. It had mostly remained well below 10% in the intervening years. In a long-term comparison, we can see a close correlation with interest rates. Low interest rates made time deposits less attractive than sight deposits, leading to a rotation out of the former and into the latter. This trend reversed when interest rates began rising again in 2022, with higher rates causing a rotation out of sight deposits and into time deposits. It headed in the opposite direction once more when rates were cut drastically in 2025. Time deposits were down 23.5% as money was moved back into sight deposits.
Balance sheet total higher in first half of 2026
The Swiss banks’ aggregate balance sheet total grew in the first half of 2026. On the assets side, financial investments, amounts due from banks and amounts due from securities financing transactions rose sharply, while liquid assets, trading portfolios and mortgage loans were largely stable. All liability items, meanwhile, recorded an increase.
The aggregate balance sheet total of banks in Switzerland grew by 3.4% to CHF 3,412,6 bn in the first five months of 2026, with almost all asset items contributing to this growth. Only liquid assets and mortgage loans posted slight falls. Amounts due from banks showed the largest increase – 12.7% – and thus completely recovered from their fall in 2025. Amounts due from securities financing transactions also grew strongly. After dropping below the multi-year average in 2025, they were up 7.1% at CHF 173.6 bn in the first five months of 2026, putting them back at the average level from the years 2015–2025. There was also a positive trend in amounts due from customers, which were up 8.6%. Growth rates for financial investments, trading portfolios in securities and precious metals and most other asset items, meanwhile, were between 0.9% and 5.1%. Only liquid assets and mortgage loans posted falls, but these were minimal at 0.4% and 0.3% respectively.
All liability items increased in the first five months of the year, with trading portfolio liabilities showing the strongest growth of 10.8%. The trend seen in 2025 thus continued. Amounts due to banks also posted a sharp increase of 9.0%. All other liability items were higher too. The smallest increase was in amounts due in respect of customer deposits, which were up 0.5%. This modest gain was due to opposing trends in Switzerland and abroad: whereas domestic customers’ deposits grew by 1.7%, those of foreign-domiciled customers fell by 2.8%. The rotation from time deposits into sight deposits that was seen in 2025 continued in the first half of 2026, reflecting the SNB’s ongoing zero interest rate policy. Sight deposits increased by 3.9% to stand at CHF 1,017.3 bn in May, while time deposits dropped 6.4% to CHF 380.0 bn. The combined figure was thus up 0.9%.