Cembra Money Bank AG is a Swiss credit institution headquartered in Zurich-Altstetten. Cembra Money Bank operated under the name GE Money Bank until its IPO in early November 2013 and was part of the

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable energ ...

Group. Since November 2013, the credit institution has been listed on the

Swiss stock exchange SIX Swiss Exchange (formerly SWX Swiss Exchange), based in Zurich, is Switzerland's principal stock exchange (the other being Berne eXchange). SIX Swiss Exchange also trades other securities such as Swiss government bonds and derivatives such as ...

. Its main shareholders are currently Pictet, UBS Fund Management (Switzerland), and BlackRock Inc.

History

Bank Prokredit was founded in 1912. In 1998, it came under the wing of

GE Capital GE Capital is the financial services division of General Electric. The company currently only runs one division, GE Energy Financial Services. It had provided additional services in the past; however, those units were sold between 2013 and 2018 ...

, which, the year before, had already acquired another Swiss consumer credit business, Bank Aufina, founded in 1953. It was not until 2006 that Prokredit, which had previously belonged to UBS, and Bank Aufina merged under the name GE Money Bank. In the summer of 2013, GE Money Bank was to be sold to the Aduno Group, but the transaction fell through at the last moment. This was followed by the IPO as Cembra Money Bank in the fall of 2013. The successful IPO is considered the first major IPO on the Swiss stock exchange in a long time. The name Cembra is derived from the Latin name for the Swiss stone pine ''

pinus cembra ''Pinus cembra'', also known as Swiss pine, Swiss stone pine or Arolla pine or Austrian stone pine or just stone pine, is a species of a pine tree in the subgenus ''Strobus''. Description The Swiss pine is a member of the white pine group, ...

'' and symbolizes the brand values of Cembra Money Bank. In 2019, Cembra Money Bank acquired cashgate AG from the Aduno Group.

Business areas

Cembra Money Bank offers products in the

personal loans In finance, unsecured debt refers to any type of debt or general obligation that is not protected by a guarantor, or collateralized by a lien on specific assets of the borrower in the case of a bankruptcy or liquidation or failure to meet the t ...

leasing A lease is a contractual arrangement calling for the user (referred to as the ''lessee'') to pay the owner (referred to as the ''lessor'') for the use of an asset. Property, buildings and vehicles are common assets that are leased. Industrial ...

Credit card A credit card is a payment card issued to users (cardholders) to enable the cardholder to pay a merchant for goods and services based on the cardholder's accrued debt (i.e., promise to the card issuer to pay them for the amounts plus the o ...

s, as well as savings market. The credit institution covers the entire Swiss market and the Principality of

Liechtenstein Liechtenstein (), officially the Principality of Liechtenstein (german: link=no, Fürstentum Liechtenstein), is a German-speaking microstate located in the Alps between Austria and Switzerland. Liechtenstein is a semi-constitutional monarchy ...

, as well as the neighboring countries. With the issuance of Migros' Cumulus Mastercard, Cembra Money Bank takes about 80 percent of the credit card business. All of the bank's cards can be used with

Apple Pay Apple Pay is a mobile payment service by Apple Inc. that allows users to make payments in person, in iOS apps, and on the web. It is supported on these Apple devices: iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad, and Mac. It digitizes and can replace a credit ...

Samsung Pay Samsung Pay (stylized as SΛMSUNG Pay) is a mobile payment and digital wallet service by Samsung Electronics that lets users make payments using compatible phones and other Samsung-produced devices. The service supports contactless payments usin ...

Garmin Pay Garmin Ltd. (shortened to Garmin, stylized as GARMIN, and formerly known as ProNav) is an American, Swiss-domiciled multinational technology company founded in 1989 by Gary Burrell and Min Kao in Lenexa, Kansas, United States, with headquart ...

Fitbit Pay Fitbit (stylized as fitbit) is an American consumer electronics and fitness company. It produces wireless-enabled wearable technology, physical fitness monitors and activity trackers such as smartwatches, pedometers and monitors for heart rate, ...

, and SwatchPay! In the crowdlending market, Cembra has been cooperating with Postfinance's

Lendico Lendico was a multinational company, operating a peer-to-peer lending platform. It was taken over by Dutch bank ING Groep in early 2018 and now operates as a subsidiary. The international online marketplace for business and consumer lending was f ...

since 2018.

Management

Holger Laubenthal is

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

and Franco Morra is chairman of the board of directors.

References

{{Authority control Publicly traded companies Banks based in Zürich Organizations established in the 1990s