Credit Suisse plans to shut 37 bank branches in Switzerland

Swiss bank Credit Suisse said on Tuesday that it plans to close 37 branches in its home country as part of an effort to streamline its business, and said that some job cuts are inevitable.

Credit Suisse said it expects to implement the changes by the end of this year, reducing the number of branches in Switzerland to 109 from 146. Some of the reduction will result from merging its Neue Aaargauer Bank subsidiary in northern Aargau canton (state) with the main Credit Suisse business.

The bank said that, in just the last two years, there has been a 40 per cent increase in the use of online banking at Credit Suisse, while use of its mobile banking option has more than doubled. It added that the Covid-19 crisis has further accelerated these trends and the number of visits to branches has been falling for years.

The company said that a headcount reduction ... is inevitable at Neue Aargauer Bank and Credit Suisse itself, but didn’t give any figures. It said that it is in consultation with employee representatives, with the aim of finding jobs inside the bank or elsewhere for as many as possible.

Credit Suisse forecast annual cost savings of about 100 million francs ($110 million) starting in 2022.