Revision of the National Accounts: bank services sector remains at 5%
On 29 September 2025, the Federal Statistical Office published details of its latest revision of the National Accounts (Revision analysis 2025 - National Accounts | Publication). While previous revisions had resulted in only marginal adjustments to the statistics, the impact on the value added by bank services this time appears at first glance to be massive.
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For a number of years, the SBA, Swiss banks and the State Secretariat for International Finance have reported the bank services sector’s contribution to the overall economy as 5%. Following the revision analysis, it seems that this share is more than a quarter lower than previously assumed, or up to a third lower in real terms.
Looking more closely at how the FSO does its calculations, however, the welcome news is that this initial impression is incorrect.
The FSO divides gross value added up into industries and sectors, using what it terms “NOGA” codes. NOGA 64 contains data on “Financial service activities”. The fact that the aggregate for NOGA 64 also included NOGA 661 and NOGA 663 (covering, respectively, “Activities auxiliary to financial services” and “Fund management activities”) had largely gone unnoticed. These two categories also belong within the bank services sector because they are involved in direct value creation – for example, through the contribution made by employees of banks’ own service companies to the operation of the banking business.
According to its own information, the FSO now has access to better quality data following the current revision, allowing the aggregate for NOGA 66 to be reported reliably for the first time. As a consequence, NOGA 661 and NOGA 663 are no longer included under “Financial service activities”, which explains the sudden drop in value added.
Following discussions between the SBA and the FSO, the FSO has made the value added of 661 and 663 available at the same level of detail, in order to ensure continuity in the statistics and the economic logic. This is also how the value added by the bank services sector will be reported in future. The new figures were published on 10 November 2025 and can be found here: Gross value added of financial and insurance activities - 1995–2024 | Data - Table.
Adding together NOGAs 64 (CHF 31,727 mn) and 661 / 663 (CHF 10,158 mn), we arrive at a stable figure of CHF 41.885 bn for the nominal value added by the bank services sector. Set against the total gross domestic product following the revision of CHF 853 bn, this once again gives a figure of just under 5%, as opposed to the 3.7% reported in NOGA 64. Specifically, this means that the apparent sudden slump in the bank services sector is in fact no cause for concern.