Reputation: Five Cantonal Banks at the Top

Sustainable corporate governance, high social standards, an inclusive management culture, convincing products, financial success or strong employer attractiveness shape the good reputation of companies. Information and communication conveyed by the media play a decisive role in shaping opinions. For the benchmark study "Reputation of Banks in Switzerland," more than 67,000 statements from Swiss online sources were evaluated.

Reputation measurement using artificial intelligence (AI)

In the period from January 1 to September 30, 2022, all publicly accessible online mentions of the most important banks in Switzerland were collected: From journalistic online media, news portals, websites and blogs to Youtube, Twitter, Facebook and other sources. Using AI-assisted text analysis, a specially trained algorithm semantically evaluated these sources, analyzed their tonality and assigned them to thematic reputation categories. These results were statistically weighted and yielded the overall rank.

The Cantonal Banks from Baselland and Basel-Stadt at the Top

The ranking of the top 10 shows a clear picture: The cantonal banks from Basel-Landschaft, Basel-City, Grisons, Thurgau and Zurich occupy the top five places. They are followed by Raiffeisen, Clientis, UBS, Lombard Odier and Migros Bank. "The interesting thing about the results is not just the rankings, but the performance of the banks in the individual reputation dimensions" says Lukas Zihlmann, managing director of swissreputation.group and initiator of the study. He adds that this makes it visible in which areas the companies effectively build reputation and enjoy a good reputation. "It also shows that no company is strong everywhere. All still have room for improvement - even the best.

Innovation and sustainability top - employer flop

The majority of the top 10 banks performed very well in the important reputation topics of "innovation" and "sustainability". Six and five of the ten banks respectively achieved top scores of three stars for these two topics. Only Clientis seems to neglect these topics somewhat; the data situation did not permit an assessment for these criteria.

There is a lot of catching up to do when it comes to employer performance. Lukas Zihlmann comments: "None of the ten companies was convincing here. For the majority, the topic was simply not sufficiently present, and if it was, the media coverage and online comments tended to be critical. In terms of successful employer branding, the banks must come up with something - there is great potential here.

Detailed analyses available for 36 banks

The complete benchmark study, which is subject to a fee, includes detailed results on the reputation of a total of 36 banks in four sectors. Studies are available for the individual sectors (1. big banks, retail banks and others, 2. cantonal banks, 3. private banks and 4. foreign banks) as well as the overall study. Special reports with individual analyses are also available on request. More information about the included banks and the offers are available at Swissreputation.group.

Practicer the Swissreputation.group and the IMWF Institute

Swissreputation.group, based in Zurich, specializes in measuring and analyzing the good reputation of companies. The measurement programs form the basis for companies to better understand their stakeholders, focus on the strategically right topics, effectively manage their communication and thus achieve impact. With its multi-method offering, swissreputation.group is the leading specialist in evidence-based reputation management.  More information

Since 2013, the IMWF Institute for Management and Economic Research has been working on analyses of extremely large volumes of data from online news and social media with the help of artificial intelligence (AI). AI is the game changer in corporate communications and marketing - and IMWF is one of Europe's leading specialists in this field. The company is based in Hamburg and has analyst teams in Frankfurt, Leipzig, Vienna and, since 2022, Zurich. More information