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Swiss Central Bank President Thomas Jordan will decide on Thursday whether to raise interest rates further.
The world has finally come back to the savers — at least a little bit. The era of negative attention lasted eight long years. What you learned in school through painstaking interest calculation is long gone when it comes to saving. Since the end of negative interest rates in September, you can now look up your textbooks again: the money in the savings account is finally growing again – albeit slowly, as the comparison portal Moneyland.ch assesses Blick’s offer.
Interest rates for well-known banks such as UBS, CS, Raiffeisen or cantonal banks range from zero to 0.25%. In some cases it is a little more, for example in Neobank Yuh there is the highest interest rate in Switzerland at 0.5%. Meanwhile, only the alternative bank, which specializes in sustainable investing, still has negative interest rates.
Will the Swiss National Bank raise interest rates?
The US Federal Reserve set the course for further rate hikes in Switzerland on Wednesday. It raised the main interest rate by 0.5 percentage point.
The SNB can now do more for Swiss savers this Thursday. Because of high inflation, it has already raised interest rates twice this year. The main interest rate is currently 0.5 percent. Maxime Bouteron (38), economist at Credit Suisse, expects a moderate rate hike of 0.25%.
“Inflation has fallen faster than the SNB predicted in September,” Boteron wrote in his management report. “Inflation prospects continue to improve as global supply chains recover, leading to significant reductions in transportation costs and normalization of delivery times.” These improvements should contribute to lower inflation in 2023.
Savings or stock account?
If the key interest rate continues to rise on Thursday, savers should be happy. “Some banks will raise interest rates in the coming months,” says Benjamin Manz (42), managing director of Moneyland.ch. But is it worth investing your money in savings accounts?
Historically, savings interest has performed much worse than stocks, for example, says Mannes. Inflation is currently higher than interest on savings. Thus, savings accounts are particularly worthwhile for people who want to be able to withdraw money in a short time.
Attention, account fees!
Just looking at interest rates isn’t always worth it. “Some have account management or arbitrage fees that can hit the interest rate,” Mannes says. For example, Cembra currently looks very attractive with an interest rate of 0.25%. But the account management fee is also 50 francs.
It is not possible to predict with certainty whether interest rates on savings will continue to rise in the long term. Mannes: It depends on many uncertain factors. But it is quite possible.
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