Thousands of payment summons are issued in Switzerland every single day. These unpaid bills landing in people’s mailboxes are doubly disagreeable – not only for the affected business, but also for the individual debtors.
An investigation carried out by CRIF has revealed substantial variations between the Cantons. The study investigated all those private individuals who have gone through debt collection proceedings and prosecutions and now have bankruptcies and certificates of unpaid debt. Information about the debtors comes from 500 companies across the whole of Switzerland.
Gulf in financial attitudes across the language barrier
This comparison between the Cantons demonstrated that payment practices are not the same everywhere. Extracts obtained from the debt collection register show the biggest problem in the French-speaking area. The poorest payers live in Neuchâtel and Geneva, where the debtor ratio is 9% of the overall population. This is almost twice as high as the average value of 5.5% calculated across the whole of Switzerland. Payment practices are equally poor in the City of Basel, the Canton of Vaud and the Canton of Ticino. Debitors in the Canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden maintain the best control over their private accounts: here, only 1.2% are in arrears with their payments. The citizens of the central Swiss Cantons of Uri, Nidwalden, Obwalden and Zug also stand out– they too almost always pay their bills on time.
Apart from the gulf in financial attitude that cuts across Switzerland as a country, differences are also apparent within each Canton. In general, the debtor ratio was higher in cities than in rural areas. For example, the citizens of La Chaux-de-Fonds (11.6%), Biel/Bienne (10.3%) and Neuchâtel (10%) were the most unreliable with regard to paying their bills. In the German-speaking region of Switzerland, the City of Basel occupied top place, followed by St. Gallen and Lucerne. Zurich, Switzerland’s largest city, achieved results that were better than the country-wide average, with a debtor ratio of 5.3%. The city of Uster in the Zurich Oberland sits at the bottom end of the scale.
For more information on the annual CRIF Payment Study carried out in Switzerland, write to:
info.ch@crif.com
