The Swiss are a nation of investment refuseniks – so will the Corona crisis change their habits for good?
It is striking that those Swiss banks that serve the top one percent have shown strong trading business in recent months: The big private banks including UBS, Credit Suisse, and Julius Baer. Meanwhile, the population at large is sitting on a pile of cash, on which the banks are not only hardly earning anything, but are being punished via negative interest rates.
Reluctant to Invest in Bitcoin
While cash has been replaced by plastic and digital money in daily payments during the Corona crisis, cash is still «king» for the Swiss when it comes to investing and saving, according to a survey of 1,500 people in the country conducted last January by online comparison service Moneyland.
According to the survey, cash remains the most popular form of investment. At 86 percent, Swiss people hold money most frequently in a private account. This is followed by savings accounts (80 percent), pension funds (59 percent), and pillar 3a pension savings accounts (50 percent). Equity investments, on the other hand, have hardly increased from the survey a year ago: 27 percent of respondents are now invested in equities.
When it comes to risky investments such as Bitcoin, the Swiss population remains rather cautious. Almost one-fifth of the population, on the other hand, holds gold.
Mattresses Stuffed With Cash
Expensive mattress stuffing continues to be popular. 45 percent of respondents keep a small amount of money at home, 17 percent a medium-sized amount, and as many as 5 percent a large amount. The safe in the bank, on the other hand, is not very popular: only 8 percent of survey participants have a small amount of money stashed in a safe deposit box.
