In its sixth edition of the largest study on digital maturity in retail banking, Deloitte analysed 349 banks across 44 global markets, including 12 from Switzerland. Representing over 80 per cent of the market share. It highlights the leading trends in digital banking, emphasising user experience, fully digitalised processes, and the evolution of banking as a platform for auxiliary services.

Following the COVID-19 pandemic, the banking industry experienced a rapid digital transformation, in a rush to implement features that catered to changing customer needs. Online banking platforms became more sophisticated, mobile apps were enriched with new functionalities, and financial institutions raced to stay competitive.

However, as the digital landscape matures, banks are shifting their focus from continually adding new features to optimising core processes and enhancing the customer experience. Digital Champions now prioritise quality over quantity, honing seamlessness, personalisation, and efficiency in their offerings. The Digital Banking Maturity Study 2024 reveals that Swiss banks, despite some improvements, continue to face challenges in keeping pace with global leaders, particularly in innovation, customer engagement, and advanced digital functionalities.

Methodology of the study
 

With its global approach, the Digital Banking Maturity Study aims to identify Digital Champions across the world. Digital Champions are banks that offer a wide range of functionalities relevant for customers, as well as a compelling user experience. They set key digital trends and have leading market practices in place, and this positions them as role models for other banks to follow.

To obtain these in-depth insights, the Study applies an outside-in approach. This involves the use of a ’mystery shopper’ tool to assess 1,005 functionalities across retail banks’ digital channels – both on the web and in mobile applications – to allow for a comprehensive maturity overview and providing a unique and unbiased insight into digital channel maturity.

Key insights

1. Swiss banks continue to lose ground in global rankings

Swiss banks have slipped in global rankings, scoring 39 in the overall Digital Banking Maturity Index . This falls below the global average of 41 and far behind Digital Champions at 60. In relative terms, Switzerland now ranks 27th out of 44 geographies, losing its mid-tier position since the previous study. None of the Swiss banks surveyed are featured among the Digital Champions in the 2024 edition . Neighbouring countries such as France, Germany, and Italy rank ahead of their Swiss peers, with even Germany overtaking Switzerland since the 2022 study.

Banks are shifting from adding new features to optimising existing ones and enhancing user experience, following the lead set by Digital Champions. While this has stabilised the gap in digital maturity between Swiss banks and Digital Champions, other global players are catching up faster, causing Switzerland to fall further behind in relative rankings.

2. Swiss banks deliver well when it comes to digital onboarding
 

Digital onboarding is a relative strength for Swiss banks, as they outperform the global average and have demonstrated progress since the 2022 study – particularly when it comes to their eBanking channels. Nearly all Swiss banks now offer digital account opening services, reflecting a focus by Swiss banks on improving one of the most critical points of the customer journey.

Even though smaller than in other areas, gaps remain when compared to Digital Champions, which excel with seamless fully in-app processes completed with little to no waiting time. Efforts to improve onboarding have paid off, but further digitisation and simplification are needed to match the standards set by Digital Champions.
 

3. The battleground for client engagement

Since the previous study, banks have switched their focus to improving their clients’ experience in existing features, and Swiss banks on average are on a par with their global peers in this regard. While they slightly outperform the global average in their web experience across both their public websites and eBanking platforms, they fall behind when it comes to mobile channels.

Optimising the user experience should remain a key focus. As our global user survey reveals, Swiss banks and many of their global peers still struggle to provide adequate accessibility, opportunities to customise the experience and provide more complex features. These shortcomings critically impact the ability to drive users’ digital engagement. By addressing this problem, banks can increase cross-selling opportunities and convert digital touchpoints into meaningful revenue streams.

Here, Swiss banks should turn to Digital Champions, which have led the way by leveraging Personal Financial Management functionalities to deepen user engagement and drive their app usage – for example with financial goal setting, budget notifications and transaction category management. While Swiss banks perform slightly above the global average in adopting such features, they still trail behind Digital Champions, which optimise these tools to enhance their user engagement and, ultimately, their customer relationships.

4. Mobile channels remain a critical weakness

Mobile banking continues to be a significant area of underperformance for Swiss banks, where they struggle with key steps such as:

• Information gathering, where often insufficient information is available to clients via their bank’s mobile channel
• Day-to-day banking, with comparatively few functionalities for app users to manage their accounts, products and cards
• Expanding the client relationship, with hardly any features that move beyond banking, no options to aggregate multiple accounts and only very limited cross-selling functionalities via their banking app.

This is a particular concern as Swiss banks are not effectively narrowing the client experience gap in what is rapidly emerging as the key channel for customer engagement, with increasing competition from challenger banks that focus on fully mobile experiences.

5. Value added services set Digital Champions apart

Digital Champions set themselves apart by offering value-added services that enhance customer engagement and loyalty . These include complementary offerings related to commercial services, mobility, entertainment, healthcare and public services. Swiss banks, have made no significant progress in adopting such value-added services. On average, Digital Champions offer value-added services 2.5 times more often than other banks globally - a gap that is also persistent for Swiss banks.

Offering more value-added services needs to become a stronger focus moving forward: they not only enhance customer loyalty and help Swiss banks to differentiate themselves against challengers, but they also offer banks access to customer data, which is critical to facilitate personalisation of the customer experience and drive successful cross-selling.

Summary
 

The Digital Banking Maturity Study 2024 underscores the urgency for Swiss banks to accelerate their digital transformation efforts. While progress has been made in some areas, significant gaps remain compared to Digital Champions. Addressing weaknesses in mobile banking, the user experience (UX), and advanced digital features is essential if Swiss banks are to to remain competitive by meeting evolving customer expectations. By adopting innovative strategies and prioritising customer engagement, Swiss banks can close the gap and reclaim their position as leaders in the rapidly evolving digital banking ecosystem.

Action points for Swiss banks

Contributors

We are grateful to Lisa Peyer for her valuable contribution to this report.