{"id":37726,"date":"2025-09-02T02:33:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T02:33:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/37726\/"},"modified":"2025-09-02T02:33:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T02:33:13","slug":"ubs-charges-pension-funds-to-hold-their-liquid-assets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/37726\/","title":{"rendered":"UBS charges pension funds to hold their liquid assets"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>    <img src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/UBS.jpg\" width=\"1300\" height=\"866\" alt=\"Swiss bank UBS\" loading=\"eager\" decoding=\"sync\" fetchpriority=\"high\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                Pension funds are angry at UBS interest charges            <\/p>\n<p>            Keystone \/ Gaetan Bally        <\/p>\n<p>            Listen to the article        <\/p>\n<p>            Listening the article        <\/p>\n<p>                Toggle language selector            <\/p>\n<ul class=\"read-aloud\/track-selector__options\">\n<li>\n<p>                            English (US)                        <\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>                            English (British)                        <\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>            Generated with artificial intelligence.        <\/p>\n<p>        Pension funds are complaining about &#8216;negative interest&#8217; charges for holding liquid assets in accounts at Switzerland\u2019s largest bank UBS.\n<\/p>\n<p>        This content was published on    <\/p>\n<p>        September 1, 2025 &#8211; 09:37\n<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.swissinfo.ch\/eng\/latest-news\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>+Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>UBS\u2019s letter is quite significant. At the end of June, the bank informed its institutional clients \u2013 primarily pension funds and insurance companies \u2013 in writing that it would be forced to charge interest on transaction accounts at -0.2% starting in mid-July. This was because the Swiss National Bank had lowered its key interest rate to 0%.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.swissinfo.ch\/eng\/workplace\/bak-switzerland-must-prepare-for-a-return-to-negative-interest-rates\/89502039\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">+ \u2018Switzerland must prepare to return to negative interest rates\u2019<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Pension fund holders who park liquid assets with UBS have been paying negative interest again since mid-July \u2013 that is, CHF2,000 on CHF1 million held in cash.<\/p>\n<p>UBS confirmed this upon request but said the -0.2% fee is technically not negative interest, but rather a fee that arises because UBS must keep liquidity available for institutional clients at all times. UBS says these additional costs are passed on.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.swissinfo.ch\/eng\/various\/the-worlds-strongest-currency-is-also-super-competitive\/89445256\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">+ The world\u2019s strongest currency is also super-competitive\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The bank states: \u201cFor pension fund and insurance deposits, banks in Switzerland are subject to the highest liquidity and quality requirements. This results in costs due to the expansion of the balance sheet and the associated higher capital utilization \u2013 in both positive and negative interest rate environments.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On the UBS platform for pension funds, this is called \u201cHigh Quality Liquid Assets costs,\u201d while on the Credit Suisse platform it is simply called \u201cnegative interest on deposits.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Pension funds angry<\/p>\n<p>No matter what the policy is called, the consequences for pension funds are always the same, says Lukas M\u00fcller-Brunner, director of the pension fund association Asip. \u201cIn essence, this results in nothing other than that holding liquidity leads to costs, even if the Swiss National Bank has not yet decided on negative interest rates,\u201d he told Swiss public broadcaster SRF.<\/p>\n<p>\n    More<\/p>\n<p>    <img src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/swi-fallback-featured-image.jpg\" width=\"1200\" height=\"630\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"auto\"\/><\/p>\n<p>        More    <\/p>\n<p>        SNB Cuts Rate to Zero and Hints at More to Stop Franc Inflows    <\/p>\n<p class=\"teaser-wide-card__excerpt\">\n<p>                        This content was published on                    <\/p>\n<p>                        Jun 19, 2025                    <\/p>\n<p>                (Bloomberg) \u2014 The Swiss National Bank cut its interest rate to zero and signaled it\u2019s ready to go further if necessary as it seeks to deter investors from pushing up the franc.            <\/p>\n<p>    <a class=\"teaser-wide-card__link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.swissinfo.ch\/eng\/snb-cuts-rate-to-zero-and-hints-at-more-to-stop-franc-inflows\/89543958\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><\/p>\n<p>            Read more: SNB Cuts Rate to Zero and Hints at More to Stop Franc Inflows<br \/>\n    <\/a><\/p>\n<p>Many pension funds are also upset that UBS gave them only two weeks to respond to the new rule. However, the pension funds contacted by SRF do not want to publicly criticise UBS.<\/p>\n<p>Many say that UBS has become too powerful in the pension fund market since the demise of Credit Suisse, which it bought in 2023. This is the only reason UBS can enforce such fees across the board.<\/p>\n<p>Pension funds are now looking for ways to circumvent UBS\u2019s negative interest rates. However, Lukas M\u00fcller-Brunner says that completely foregoing liquidity isn\u2019t possible: \u201cIt\u2019s important for a Swiss pension fund to be able to keep a certain amount of pension assets actually liquid. This could be to pay pensions, or for someone who changes employer and joins the pension fund to then contribute the funds \u2013 or the opposite, for someone to leave the pension fund.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Large amounts are also due because people are increasingly withdrawing lump sums instead of pensions when they retire. \u201cA pension fund simply cannot avoid keeping a certain amount of retirement savings in the account as liquid assets,\u201d says the Asip director.<\/p>\n<p>Other domestic and foreign banks do not impose such a fee. Only Zurich Cantonal Bank, in particular, stated upon inquiry that negative interest rates are possible in individual cases \u2013 depending on the size of the transaction and the customer relationship.<\/p>\n<p>Either way, the whole thing is unpleasant for the insured: every franc that is taken away from them means they will miss out on a pension in old age.<\/p>\n<p>Translated from German by DeepL\/mga<\/p>\n<p>                How we work            <\/p>\n<p>We select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools to translate them into English. A journalist then reviews the translation for clarity and accuracy before publication.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. The news stories we select have been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team from news agencies such as Bloomberg or Keystone.<\/p>\n<p>If you have any questions about how we work, write to us at\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.swissinfo.ch\/eng\/various\/ubs-charges-pension-funds-to-hold-liquid-assets-in-bank-vaults\/mailto:english@swissinfo.ch\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">english@swissinfo.ch<\/a><\/p>\n<p>        Articles in this story    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pension funds are angry at UBS interest charges Keystone \/ Gaetan Bally Listen to the article Listening the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37727,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[584,29161,79,29163,18,29162,19,17,11,234,235,29164],"class_list":{"0":"post-37726","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-article","9":"tag-beat-various","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-content-from-srf","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-financial-and-business-service","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-latest-news","17":"tag-personal-finance","18":"tag-personalfinance","19":"tag-rts-and-rsi"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}