New bank connections
This was on October 17 and already affected all September subscription invoices as a registered telecommunications service provider. The new owner of Credit Suisse, UBS AG, was the sender for payments made by our customers. When we contacted Credit Suisse by telephone, they promised to get to the bottom of the matter,
We had already wondered why everyone was taking a little longer to pay their subscription bills this month, because most of them have been paying within 10-30 days for years.
The eBanking worked, there was no letter. Nevertheless, I had a bad feeling, also in connection with the other incidents at Credit Suisse, you can put one and one together (see other blog entries) and the established finance blog; www.inside-paradeplatz.ch also had a lot to report about the new machinations at UBS, which is kicking out Swiss customers in droves.
So I asked our managing director to transfer 50 centimes from his other company, where we also work together from time to time and where he is a customer. When this was refunded to him the following Monday afternoon - no account under these details - our managing director then walked the few meters to Credit-Suisse AG in person to enquire at the customer counter.
It was a very short conversation, and tainted with an arrogance that he had never experienced in his 30 years of business: "Well, Mr. Frefel, UBS AG did indeed terminate your account, as early as October 9 for incoming payment transactions."
When asked why, the answer was: "We refer you to our general terms and conditions, which state that we can block or terminate accounts at any time without giving reasons. To put it bluntly, you and your company do not fit in with the portfolio orientation of UBS AG. Have a nice day." The letter would arrive in about ten days - by registered mail. That was on October 21, 2024.
The registered letter actually arrived. On November 13, but as an A priority. The letter was dated July 9, 2024 with the following wording:
The banking relationship will be terminated by UBS AG with immediate effect, but no later than October 9, 2024.
The reasoning makes for rustic reading.
Must have been a special day, the Wednesday of the second week of October, October 09. supposedly decided on July 09, 2024. We are a small fish after all. No legal problems, still in the start-up phase and we had ambitious goals, developing ambitious software solutions for the SME and enterprise environment alongside our core business for all those years, with capital being made available from time to time by the shareholders in order to achieve our goals in the medium term.
We asked Swiss Post to clarify whether we might have missed a registered letter in the period July-August 2024, because we have already had the experience that a registered letter was actually posted as a collection slip instead of via ePost, and that was during a vacation absence, which is anything but ideal. This was denied, so it is obvious that the UBS letter, which has no reference to us at all in context, was backdated.
When we then knew that our customers hadn't been able to pay their subscription bills for a good two months because there was probably an obligation to issue instructions to UBS AG, we started looking for a new main bank. We asked a colleague in our personal circle, who had been part of the management at Credit Suisse International for more than a decade as an authorized signatory at , for his opinion because he knows both banks well. He also has a track record of having twice in his career glimpsed Credit Suisse out of the dormant Jewish assets story on the one hand and the Lehman Brothers story on the other.
The man was not at all surprised: "Hey, take it easy, you're too progressive and too innovative, what you've rolled out and what you're still planning. You're not the first and you won't be the last. There are blacklists that are exchanged between banks... Diversify in banking too!" This is what he has been advising all his former clients and contacts for a few years now. We followed his advice.
In addition to an existing backup bank account, we have sought another bank relationship and then defined this as the main bank for our operating business.
So we opened new journals, new accounts and so on in our ERP and were then able to post the first September and October invoices from our thoroughly satisfied customers in mid-November,
**There remains a pale aftertaste in the way UBS communicates. We too are not blessed with perfectionism in all matters. We too have forgotten to check important things and work on ourselves every day. But what we can do is communicate with our clients and guarantee our services. Every business relationship is built on this, in good times and bad.
The Inside Paradeplatz report also shows that we are not an isolated case:
https://insideparadeplatz.ch/2024/08/14/abschluss-beweist-ubs-schmeisst-schweizer-kunden-aktiv-raus/
If you are video-savvy and understand English, we recommend this short video, an interview with US billionaire and tech investor Andersen:
It shows that start-ups that are too innovative are finding it increasingly difficult and are being blacklisted.
PS: We never wanted to go to UBS anyway. But we were quite happy with Credit Suisse.
Please also read our blog post: By the way...