In Switzerland, traditional banks continue to dominate digitalization in retail banking.

In 2025, UBS retained its top spot, recognized in a new research by French management consulting firm Colombus Consulting for its strong digital presence, social media engagement, and high-performing digital platforms. At the same time, Swiss neobanks including Neon and Yuh are rapidly advancing their digital offerings, emphasizing personalization and flexibility, the study shows.

The 2025 Digital Index, released in December 2025, evaluates the digitalization of customer experience in Swiss retail banking using around 20 quantitative indicators and more than 30 qualitative indicators across 28 major players. The index measures digital presence and performance across websites, mobile applications, social networks, digital marketing, and the EcoIndex, which assesses the environmental impact of a digital service.

The research shows that traditional universal banks continued to outperform digital challengers in 2025, leading in digital presence, engagement, social media, and app usage in Switzerland.

In particular, UBS maintained its top position thanks to a strong focus on social media. The bank excelled in paid search and sponsored posts on social media, and boasts a strong presence on LinkedIn and Instagram. Although UBB’s web and mobile app scores were more mixed, they remained at or above the panel average.

UBS’s digital strategy focuses on building a strong, human-centered brand presence on social media through carefully planned, platform-specific content that educates and engages audiences on relevant financial topics. Messaging, visuals, and tone are tailored to deliver real value, and remain top of mind.

UBS has also strengthened its social media presence through high-profile collaborations, especially with Dior via the “UBS House of Craft” initiative. This campaign generated more than 92,000 interactions through content showcasing couture craftsmanship and creativity, enabling the bank to reach new audiences and consolidate its premium positioning on Instagram.

Top ranking remains unchanged

In 2025, the top 5 retail banking players of Colombus Consulting’s Digital Index remained largely unchanged. Three of these players are traditional incumbents, reflecting their continued adaptation to evolving customer preferences.

Among these, Raiffeisen ranked second, advancing one place over the prior year. This rise was driven by a strong performance in the web category, and high online engagement.

The bank also performed well in the mobile app category, with good search engine optimization (SEO) and effective investments display advertising. However, social media performances were more modest, despite notable initiatives aimed at younger audiences like the YoungMemberPlus campaign on paid and organic digital campaigns across Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and Google to highlight the benefits of opening a youth account.

PostFinance, ranking fourth, excelled in digital marketing, particularly through banners, and demonstrated strong mobile app SEO. However, the bank fell two positions compared to the previous year due to weaker performance in responsible digital practices, LinkedIn and Instagram engagement, and app SEO. PostFinance is a subsidiary company of the state-owned Swiss Post, claiming more than 3.8 million accounts.

Swissquote and Revolut rank highest among digital banks

Ranking third in the 2025 Digital Index ranking is Swissquote. The Swiss banking group moved up one place, thanks to its excellent customer experience ratings on web platforms and its strong commitment to responsible digital technology. Its large communities on Facebook, X, YouTube and TikTok, as well as the high frequency of updates to its mobile apps, set it apart from the rest of the panel. On the other hand, the bank scored lower in digital marketing and generated fewer interactions on LinkedIn and Instagram despite its large subscriber base.

Swissquote provides financial services in the areas of trading, investment services and banking services. It operates primarily online, claiming more than 708,000 private and institutional accounts.

Ranking fifth in the 2025 Digital Index ranking is Revolut. The digital bank excelled in the mobile dimension, but showcased more limited results in other areas.

Revolut is a leading digital banking headquartered in the UK, providing bank accounts, debit cards, credit cards, currency exchange, stock trading, cryptocurrency exchange and peer-to-peer (P2P) payments. It’s the most valuable fintech company in the world, worth US$75 billion, and serves 65 million customers across about 48 countries and territories.

A focus on personalization

While digital banks and new challengers still lag behind large universal banks, 2025 marked a turning point as Swiss neobanks accelerated their development by prioritizing personalization and flexibility.

In 2025, Neon revamped its offer with four plans to better target each profile. Two new packages, namely Neon Plus and Neon Global, were added to complete its existing Neon Free and Neon Metal plans.

Neon Plus builds on the Neon Free offering, which includes no base fee, a Swiss account with eBill and QR payments, a debit Mastercard, and access to share and exchange-traded fund (ETF) trading. The Plus plan adds zero foreign exchange (FX) markup on card purchases and cash withdrawals outside Switzerland, two free cash withdrawals per month at Swiss ATMs, phone-based customer support, and extended warranties on electronic devices purchased with the Neon card. The plan is priced at CHF 2 per month or CHF 20 per year.

Neon Global includes all the features of Neon Plus, while offering additional insurance coverage for travel, cyber risks, and shopping. It also provides lower fees for international cash withdrawals and money transfers. Neon Global costs CHF 8 per month, or CHF 80 annually.

Finally, Neon Metal, the premium tier, incorporates all the benefits of Neon Global and adds a 13 gram stainless steel card, free ATM withdrawals worldwide, and phone insurance against damage and theft.

In mid-2025, Neon strengthened its customer service capabilities with the launch Neon Help, an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot deployed to handle customer questions across the platform’s support channels and improve service efficiency.

At the same time, digital banking platform Yuh continued to grow in strength with its free multi-currency account, no-fee card, as well as TWINT and eBill capabilities.

This year, Swissquote acquired full ownership of Yuh and is now working on tightening integration between its traditional trading platform and the newer Yuh app, which targets retail customers with simplified financial services. This underscores the bank’s strategy to bridge advanced trading capabilities with an intuitive, mobile-first banking experience, and its drive to position Yuh as a key growth engine for reaching a younger and more digitally oriented customer base.

Launched in 2021 as a joint venture between PostFinance and Swissquote, Yuh is a digital banking platform provides banking, payments, saving, and investing services. The company turned profitable in 2024, and is now serving more than 340,000 accounts.

Digital marketing spending trends

In 2025, Swiss retail banks spent an estimated CHF 51.5 million on digital marketing, marking a 12% year-over-year (YoY) decline, with paid search spending declining nearly 6 points YoY, the Colombus Consulting research shows.

Social media spending remained stable, increasing 0.6 points YoY, and accounted for 40% of digital marketing budgets.

TikTok, in particular, has emerged as a key platform for reaching younger audiences. Raiffeisen, for example, focuses heavily on TikTok. While the bank’s TikTok account boasts over 14,000 followers with some videos exceeding hundreds of thousands of views, its accounts on Facebook, Instagram, X, and YouTube are not very active or even inactive.

Raiffeisen also partners with high-profile influencers on the platform to reach younger audiences. For example, for its YoungMemberPlus campaign in French-speaking Switzerland, Raiffeisen teamed up with Leo Monferini, also known as Eugene with the handle @leshautscommeleo, who has 4.6 million followers on TikTok.

Banks across Europe are increasingly embracing TikTok as part of their marketing strategy. Dutch bank ING uses TikTok as part of its digital marketing strategy to acquire new customers, measure results and improve engagement with younger audiences. Its “Bienestar Digital” campaign, launched in the summer 2024, adopted a full-funnel strategy on TikTok to target users at every stage of the customer journey. The campaign achieved a 11% increase in ad recall, which means that it was memorable, and a 15% rise in new accounts.

In the UK, Starling Bank uses TikTok to run financial literacy campaigns, leveraging fun short videos to explain budgeting and savings, and help make banking relatable to Gen Z audiences.

Featured image: Edited by Fintech News Switzerland, based on image by farknot via Freepik