Swiss bank safe deposits – the alternative options

Generally speaking, for safe deposit box customers in Switzerland, being tied to a bank account means your privacy is restricted by existing customer data reporting requirements, thus denying you optimal protection. Furthermore, bank safe deposit boxes do not necessarily include insurance, or otherwise provide insufficient cover. And according to media reports, bank customers constantly discover they do not receive all the available keys to their safe deposit box.

Moreover, there now appears to be a general decline in the availability of bank safe deposit boxes. Bank branches are increasingly closing their in-house vaults, while at the same time, new bank buildings are being built without safe deposit vaults. The reason for this trend is the high security standards today’s safe deposit box vaults must meet. While break-ins to Swiss bank vaults are thankfully quite limited, media reports from neighbouring countries suggest these are nevertheless on the increase. Many bank vaults date back to the last century, so their security systems are correspondingly outdated. Adapting these facilities to combat contemporary risks is, of course, complex and costly, so banks generally find closure is often a cheaper alternative.

This situation highlights the shift in the core business of banks over the past decades. While the focus was once on managing wages and salaries and safeguarding assets in bank safe deposit boxes, in the digital age, capital-building reserves and financing are more important. So where do customers put their assets when their own four walls offer insufficient security and bank safe deposit boxes are increasingly becoming a relic of the past?