Swiss Bank Closes Some Gold, Silver Swap Windows
Zurich-Switzerlan (Nov 17) The precious metal Spezialschalter UBS have a long history. Anyone who wanted to buy or sell gold, silver or another valuable metal in bullion or coin, enjoyed a special support at the Grossbank. At least in the large branches of the bank in Zurich on Bahnhofstrasse, in Basel on the Aeschenvorstadt and in Geneva on the Rue de la Corraterie. In addition to the ordinary money switches, UBS also had so-called precious metal switches, which made it easy for customers to trade the valuable goods physically, directly and directly.
The UBS confirmed this morning at the request of Tagesanzeiger.ch/Newsnet. The special switches were closed at the three locations immediately. It was a business policy decision. For customers, two things change. The current product range will be streamlined, and the "most common bars and coins for sale and purchase" would be ready, UBS writes in an intranet message. The range would also be reduced at all other branches.
As a second change, customers have to sell their bars and coins when selling at the normal counter, and then wait two to three working days until the bank carries out the appropriate credit, subject to a quality check. UBS does not expect negative customer feedback. "This means that our service offer essentially corresponds to the demand of our customers," says a UBS spokesman.
Internal placement
Affected by the three locations is about a dozen UBS employees. For them, a new job would be sought within the bank, the spokesman said. Closing is part of ongoing restructuring within UBS. Costs are always an issue.
The bank recently announced various outsourcing and postponements. In Schaffhausen, for example, it is building a back-office center for a maximum of 500 employees in the fields of payment and information technology. The first 150 employees are expected to begin one year in the Munot city on the border with Germany.
Yesterday it was announced that UBS would transfer the European payment service to Clearstream, a subsidiary of Deutsche Börse. As early as 2015 it became known that the Swiss bank was outsourcing the printing and sending of account and deposit statements to a Swiss Post subsidiary.
Higher charges instead of customers
While such outsourcing affects functions in the background, the "backoffice", UBS is now setting the three precious metal special switches on the knife in an area that was well known and appreciated by customers. Many appreciated extra support for gold and silver, which brought the bank according to business. Therefore, the performance reduction should not be a problem for the customers. On the other hand, the UBS top in its quarterly reports points to the difficult situation surrounding the record rates and the uncertain markets. Customers would remain on the side line rather than actively doing business.
To compensate for the decline, led by UBS and other banks new fees a respectively increased the existing. Last week Postfinance broke a taboo. As the first large bank house, it announced that it would charge a minus of one percent of personal assets over one million by early 2017.
The UBS stressed that it is closely following the situation, but is currently not planning to leave private customers with a minuscule. This is becoming more and more visible as it changes and removes its service. The precious metal switches are the latest step in this direction.
Source: Reuters
