Credit Suisse has started an advertising campaign for its banking app CSX just as the Euro 2020 soccer tournament kicks off, but will the results make the bank over the moon or sick as a parrot?
Credit Suisse Switzerland has gone football crazy with its second advertising campaign for its banking app CSX, which was launched last October.
However, football fever cannot distract attention from the bank’s problems off the pitch. Credit Suisse’s reputation has suffered after its failure to manage risk properly led to huge losses from the collapse of supply-chain lender Greensill Capital and hedge fund Archegos.
In fast-paced advertising spots for CSX members of the Swiss national team and amateur footballers pose the question: «Can’t banking be more simple? Like football.» The advertiser’s answer is: «Of course it can!»
Updates on Score
But what really is the score with CSX? After the big build-up to the launch last autumn things have gone quiet about Switzerland’s second largest bank’s digital offering. Sector analysts described developments to finews.com as «very modest».
On the other hand its competitors give weekly updates on the state of play. The move online caused by the coronavirus pandemic and rising stock exchanges mean the various apps are pulling in the crowds. The leading payment solutions as well as credit and collection services provider Intrum reported 150,000 onboardings last year and expects that number to rise 50 percent this year.
Conditions optimal
Basically conditions are optimal for financial apps and CSX should be able to benefit from this. However, this does not seem to be reflected in the data available. At the start of the year Credit Suisse CEO Thomas Gottstein put the number of users at over 10,000. Credit Suisse told finews.com that since the launch CSX had five-figure user numbers.
By comparison Swiss fintech Neon, whose banking app launched in 2019 recently reported 70,000 users. The Yuh app launched in May by Postfinance and Swissquote had 10,000 three weeks after it was released. The leading foreign banking app Revolut said recently it had over 350,000 customers in Switzerland.
Greenfield advantage
An expert on Swiss digital banking put CSX’s modest start down to the fact that the app had not found a vocabulary that differentiated it from Credit Suisse and was not offering anything radically new. Greenfield fintechs could market themselves much more distinctly, which put bank apps at a disadvantage.
Recouping Costs
Even the app’s name signals that it is part of Credit Suisse. CSX is aimed at young, digitally savvy customers but is also seeking to offer a full range of banking services.
«CSX combines the user-friendliness and flexibility of a digital bank with the comprehensive range of Credit Suisse’s services and expertise as an established full-service bank rooted in Switzerland,» the bank told finews.com, adding that customers could choose to engage with the bank either digitally or personally.
Sources say the bank prefers digital customers to whom it can sell a wide range of products and services. This is because at the end of the day Credit Suisse will seek to recoup the app’s production costs in contrast to neobanks which often put growth before profitability.
«Considerable Achievement»
Another banking analyst said he considered the CSX app, which was mostly developed in house, as a «considerable achievement».
Credit Suisse said the account and payment functions as well as the debit Mastercard were heavily used. The digital finance planner was often used and was receiving positive reviews and the range of products was being constantly expanded, it added.
New functionalities
The bank said that the app’s functionalities would be continually expanded over the next few months. Mortgage and rental deposit products were in the pipeline.
Even if some people think the marketing campaign for CSX will be over after the Euros, industry magazine «Werbewoche» (in German) reports that it could go to extra time because Credit Suisse will be sponsoring the Swiss Super League from July.
