Zurich, Switzerland – The Federal Council decided on 11 December 2015 to reduce the maximum interest rate on consumer loans offered under the Consumer Credit Act (CCA) from 15% to 10% (3-months LIBOR plus 10% surcharge); the respective maximum interest rate for credit card overdraft will be reduced to 12%. The decision will come into force as of 1 July 2016 for all new contracts entered thereafter. Contracts entered before 1 July 2016 will not be affected. This decision is likely to lead to a restriction of access to credit for some customers due to the risk based pricing approach applied by Cembra Money Bank (the ‘Bank').
The reduction of the maximum interest rate will have no impact on the results for the current financial year 2015. Therefore, the Bank is expecting reported earnings per share of between CHF 4.70 and CHF 4.90 for 2015 as announced previously.
In order to mitigate the potential consequences, the Bank has defined a set of measures which will be introduced in the short and medium term. Taking into account these measures as well as the average contract duration of approximately three years on products affected by the CCA regulation, it is expected that the impact for the business year 2016 will be limited. Based on current information, and assuming all other things remain equal, it will, however, have on a like for like basis compared to the mid-point of the 2015 earnings per share (EPS) guidance range (CHF 4.80) an estimated negative impact on EPS of 10% or CHF 0.47 respectively, when fully phased in over the next 36 months. The Bank will seek, through other business initiatives, to further mitigate this negative impact.
In that context, and given the solid capital position of the Bank and the continuous buildup of excess capital above the tier 1 minimum target of 18%, the Board of Directors will reassess if necessary its pay-out target range in due course in order to ensure a sustainable dividend policy.