Migros Bank with a slightly higher net profit (archive image)
The bank also grew strongly in the mortgage business.
The institute was able to increase its business income by 7.8 percent to CHF 703.0 million, as announced by Migros Bank on Tuesday. However, operating expenses also rose sharply, up 13.0 percent to CHF 386.7 million. The bank justifies the increase, among other things, with the “substantial development investments” in the card business. Migros Bank took over the issue of the Cumulus card for parent company Migros last summer after the partnership between Migros and the previous publisher Cembra expired.
Business success as a measure of the operating result climbed by almost 25 percent to CHF 291.7 million last year, as the bank further announced. The bottom line, however, was only a minimal increase in annual profit of CHF 240.5 million (+0.2 percent).
In the interest business, the institute increased its business success by 6.4 percent to CHF 513.3 million. According to the statement, the increase was dampened by the increased interest on customer deposits.
The bank was able to increase its commission business even more clearly (+8.9 percent to 126 million). The growth in asset management and investment funds as well as the card business contributed to this.
After the Corona years of 2020 and 2021, people traveled more and used their cards again last year. Thanks to increased turnover in banknote trading, the increased travel activity also led to greater success in the trading business (+6.4% to 49.1 million).
Loans to customers increased last year by 8.4 percent to CHF 48.8 billion, with the mortgage business increasing by 7.2 percent. But Migros Bank also experienced strong growth in customer deposits: These rose by 5.3 percent to CHF 44.3 billion.
The institute now wants to continue the growth by means of attractive conditions on savings and pension accounts: “We want to make classic saving more attractive again,” CEO Manuel Kunzelmann is quoted as saying.
Migros Bank sees itself well positioned for its 2023 anniversary – it is celebrating its 65th anniversary. It remains to be seen how consumers and companies will deal with persistently high inflation and growing economic risks. Overall, however, the bank assumes that growth will continue to be solid and expects annual results to be in line with the previous year.
(SDA)