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Strategy

Raiffeisen 2025 is the Raiffeisen Group’s strategy, setting the framework for Raiffeisen’s next chapter. The goal is to focus consistently on clients and have more time to provide advice. By 2025, Raiffeisen will have expanded its digital services, strengthened its advisory services, enabled seamless interaction between the digital world and the local Raiffeisen banks, and created a simple and efficient mortgage process. Raiffeisen reached major strategic milestones in the year under review.

Group strategy Raiffeisen 2025

The Group strategy Raiffeisen 2025 sets out the strategic direction for the period 2021–2025. It was developed in 2020 in an extensive and participative process, and lays out the Raiffeisen Group’s future direction. It also shows how Raiffeisen intends to position itself in the Swiss banking market, so that it can continue to operate as a successful cooperative bank with a local presence.

What guides our activities

Raiffeisen is guided by its cooperative values in its dealings with cooperative members, clients, staff and society. Both in its day-to-day operations and when implementing the strategy, Raiffeisen acts according to the following principles:

Raiffeisen strives for a management culture focused on profit and efficiency, but not profit maximisation.
Raiffeisen is a bank that connects people. It appeals to all stakeholders, connects people based on its values and creates added value.
Raiffeisen generally positions itself as a smart follower in the change process. This poses much less business risk. Raiffeisen occasionally positions itself as a first mover, too.
Raiffeisen’s strength lies in the Group and as a team. The cooperative model allows Raiffeisen to stand out from its competitors as an innovative community of values and added value.
Raiffeisen is evolving from a provider of products to a provider of solutions, while also driving its cost efficiency through scale, quality, standardisation and digital transformation.
One thing is always true for the banking group: security, stability, sustainability and high-quality growth come first.

Strategic goals

Raiffeisen is located where its clients are: hybrid – in other words, both in person and digital. As the retail bank with the highest level of client satisfaction, Raiffeisen is striving to further develop its proximity to its clients. At Raiffeisen, clients do not have to choose between digital banking services or personal advice at the branch; clients can select the channel they prefer to use at that particular time. Raiffeisen ensures that the transition between the digital world and personal contact with the advisor is straightforward. That is why Raiffeisen invests not only in developing its digital channels and in efficient processes, but also in delivering expert advice at the local level.

To further develop proximity to its clients, Raiffeisen is introducing various measures:

Raiffeisen creates more time for clients by becoming more efficient. To do so, Raiffeisen is streamlining and digitalising the mortgage process as well as other basic processes. Raiffeisen will use the time gained in this way for providing advice.
Raiffeisen is working on a seamless customer experience across all channels. To do this, Raiffeisen is investing in enhancing the interaction between the channels and especially in upgrading some channels, such as mobile and online banking.
Raiffeisen provides personal, comprehensive and pragmatic advice to its clients. With this in mind, investments are being made in a systematic approach to advice. Digital tools and systems support the advisors in their work.
Raiffeisen complements the portfolio of solutions with simple and clear bank and related solutions. For this, Raiffeisen is adding to its established and compelling range of products and services in order to address clients’ needs even better. Raiffeisen focuses particularly on expanding the pension and investment business, with the aim of making sustainable asset accumulation available to everyone.
Raiffeisen will invest in developing professional and methodological skills throughout the comprehensive advisory services until 2025. Special focus will be placed on developing expertise specifically in the pension and investment segment. Employees think and act with an entrepreneurial mindset.
Raiffeisen positions itself as a strong brand, both locally and nationally. As a sustainable cooperative, it is guided by its values.

Strategic progress

The Raiffeisen 2025 strategy is being implemented in three waves. The first wave (2021–2022) established the basis for a successful transformation by expanding the product range, simplifying processes and piloting initial developments. In the second wave (2023–2024), initiatives will be advanced that will allow Raiffeisen to gain more quality time for clients. The third wave (2025) will focus on setting the bank apart by delivering hybrid advice.

Sustainable range of products in the pension and investment segment rounds
off the offering

Raiffeisen continued to expand its range of pension and investment products in the year under review. This included enhancing the functionality of the digital pension solution, launching index-tracking investment funds, extending the range of advisory mandates and aligning the existing asset management solutions fully with sustainability. In addition, Raiffeisen’s “Futura Impact” makes it the first national retail bank to create an asset management mandate which, besides financial goals, aims for a positive and measurable environmental and social impact. Clients now receive portfolio reporting that has been expanded to include key sustainability performance indicators. These will, for example, provide transparent information about the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the investments. In addition, the asset management mandates are now available from a minimum investment of CHF 50,000. By lowering the entry threshold from CHF 100,000 to 50,000, Raiffeisen aims to enable a broader client base to delegate management of their assets to a professional partner.

Efficient mortgage process due to automation

The processes for mortgage lending to private clients will be enhanced and digitalised by 2025. The aim is to boost efficiency and consequently gain more time for clients through standardisation and automation. Raiffeisen laid the technical groundwork for this in the year under review. Using a new automated mortgage process, Raiffeisen will be able to prepare and post-process the majority of all loan enquiries from private clients in a standardised procedure. This will include automatically recognising the relevant loan documents using artificial intelligence and automatically generating financing proposals. In addition, advisors will have access to an advisory tool to show their clients different options for financing. With this new process, clients receive an answer to their loan application more quickly, while banks gain time that they can then invest in providing advice. Pilot operation at the first Raiffeisen banks started at the end of 2022. The solution will be gradually introduced at all Raiffeisen banks until probably the end of 2023 and then continuously enhanced.

Basis for digital customer experience developed

Major importance is attached to expansion of digital channels in the Raiffeisen 2025 strategy. As a core project, a new application will be in place by 2025 that brings together all of Raiffeisen’s digital services. Raiffeisen laid the technical groundwork for this in the year under review, adopting a mobile-first approach. The test phase for the new Raiffeisen app started at the end of 2022. It is expected that a first version will be available to all private clients by the end of 2023. This will include the basic functions that are already used regularly by 80% of users in online banking. Clients will be able to review their financial situation and make payments in the app at any time. It will also be possible to take out new products and manage existing products such as mortgages. In addition, clients can interact with their Raiffeisen bank within the app and exchange information. The app’s functionality and, in a later step, the desktop version of the app will be continuously expanded until 2025.

The digital onboarding process was subject to technical development in the year under review. It is expected that, by the end of 2023, private individuals will be able to digitally verify their identity and become a Raiffeisen client within five minutes. To offer website visitors an intuitive user experience, Raiffeisen revised and upgraded its website at raiffeisen.ch in the year under review.

Advisory service strengthened

Raiffeisen is focusing on a comprehensive approach to advice and is investing in advisory services and tools capable of handling future demands. The goal is to support clients throughout the events and stages of their lives, and to provide support in areas where clients are independently and digitally active. Raiffeisen continued to professionalise its advisory processes in the year under review, while also investing in the qualifications of its advisors.

As part of the regular strategy review, Raiffeisen has defined the target in the residential sector more clearly. Raiffeisen will not continue pursuing the ecosystem idea in this strategy period; instead, it will focus on its comprehensive expertise in private residential property, involving bank and related topics such as buying, selling and renovation. Implementation of prudent home ownership advice commenced during the year under review. In addition to financing advice, other advisory services are offered, such as search and purchase advice, or advice on renovation. This enables Raiffeisen banks to provide clients with competent and comprehensive advice throughout the entire life-cycle, from search to sale. In some fields, Raiffeisen banks work together with partners such as the subsidiary Raiffeisen Immo AG, or with EnergieSchweiz as part of the “Renewable heating” incentive programme.

Goal achievement and outlook

Raiffeisen is well on track to achieve its 2025 strategic goals, as can be seen in the chart below. Most of the ambitious goals were reached in the year under review. Progress is being made in diversifying the business model. The proportion of neutral business in operating income increased to 24.0% (previous year: 23.0%). Due to the increases in operating income, the cost/income ratio remained at a very good level and, at 55.9%, was slightly better than in the previous year. This underlines the ongoing efficiency gains that have been achieved despite significant investments in the strategy.

Last year, Raiffeisen passed the mark of 2 million cooperative members. This means that around one in four adults in Switzerland is a co-owner of a Raiffeisen bank. The number of cooperative members has therefore more than doubled in the past 20 years. Raiffeisen also increased the strategic target for the number of cooperative members from 2.03 to 2.09 million, as part of the strategic decision to make the branches of Raiffeisen Switzerland independent cooperative banks.

The number of clients also increased by 31,000. The Group now has 3.64 million clients, which is a good figure given the volatile market environment and strong competition (target in 2022: 3.65 million). The positive trend thus continued in the year under review. It is also particularly encouraging that the proportion of private clients who have their main bank account with Raiffeisen has also increased. This percentage now stands at 35.1%, highlighting Raiffeisen’s proximity to clients. Looking ahead, the focus will be on more time spent advising clients. For this reason, the target for the number of clients by 2025 has been adjusted slightly, from 3.86 to 3.80 million.

A clear sign of Raiffeisen’s attractiveness as an employer is the improvement in Universum’s employer ranking by 23 places, to 23^rd place. This makes Raiffeisen one of the top 25 employers in Switzerland. The appraisal as “Top Company 2023” by the Kununu employer rating platform confirms this success.

The year 2023 will see the start of the second wave of implementing the strategy, in which Raiffeisen will focus on gaining more time for individual client advice. Raiffeisen aims to achieve this by expanding its digital services and making the process from mortgage application to loan decision more efficient.

2022 Reporting