The Chambers bury the PostFinance privatization project

After the Council of States, the National buried without opposition the project of the Federal Council which was to allow the subsidiary of the Post Office to be able to grant loans and mortgages in complete autonomy.

PostFinance will not be privatized for the time being. After the Council of States, the National buried Monday without opposition the project of the Federal Council which was to allow the subsidiary of the Post Office to be able to grant loans and mortgages in complete autonomy.

A systemically important bank with nearly three million customers and assets under management of 120 billion francs, PostFinance is one of Switzerland’s leading financial institutions. But it is not authorized to grant loans and mortgages, which reduces its ability to build up equity.

Its long-term profitability is threatened. The government has therefore proposed to lift the ban on granting loans and mortgages and, in a second step, to privatize Postfinance, a subsidiary currently 100% of the Post Office – itself 100% owned by the Confederation. This solution was to enable him to achieve yields consistent with the branch.

Get the big picture first

PostFinance is facing major challenges and it is necessary for politicians to act, conceded Edith Graf-Litscher (PS / TG) for the commission. But its privatization would have a strong impact on the other companies of the Poste group, so we first need an overview of the file.

In the long term, such privatization must be on the table but it does not make sense until we know what the universal postal service will look like, added Katja Christ (PVL / BS). The project puts “the cart before the horse”, illustrated co-rapporteur Olivier Feller (PLR / VD).

On the legal level, one must question the compatibility of the project with the Constitution, or on the social level, the fact that the separation of PostFinance from the rest of the group would increase the pressure on the employees, continued the Vaudois. Economically, this project creates distortion of competition, added Philipp Matthias Bregy (Center / VS).

Environmentalists abstained from voting. “We might have gone into the matter and then sent the project back to the government, but by giving it direction,” explained Michael Töngi (Vert-es / LU).

“Signal not at all clear”

Communication Minister Simonetta Sommaruga was aware from the outset that it would be difficult to find a majority on this project in view of the opposition from all sides. She regretted a “not at all clear signal” from Parliament, recalling that the financing of the universal postal service was threatened in the medium term.

“At some point, it is the taxpayers or the consumers who will have to pay,” she argued. And to be relieved that the Post Office currently has a strategy until 2024.

This rejection of the two Chambers pushes the Federal Council to put the work back on the job. The Federal Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications must submit proposals for the continuation of the procedure by the summer of 2023. The PS has already announced that it is opposed to a privatization of PostFinance, “now or in the future”.