Finance13 August, 20262 min read
Swissquote Cuts Full-Year Guidance After Crypto Trading Revenue Plunges 66%
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H1 net crypto income fell 66.2% to CHF 14.6 million. Full-year revenue and profit guidance were cut amid crypto slump.
Crypto income collapses
Swissquote slashed its full-year revenue and profit guidance after first-half cryptocurrency trading activity deteriorated, with its shares tumbling about 14% following the announcement. In the first six months, Swissquote reported crypto segment net revenue of 14.6 million Swiss francs, a 66.2% drop from the same period last year, while crypto trading volumes fell 63.5% to 2.58 billion francs. Swissquote now expects full-year net revenue of around 730 million francs, roughly 30 million francs below its previous forecast, and it also recorded an additional 5.3 million-franc loss from marking down crypto inventory held to support its in-house exchange, SQX.
The company attributed the revision to a “weaker-than-expected crypto market environment” that persisted through the first six months, and it said the guidance cut reflected the impact of price declines across cryptocurrencies. Client assets rose approximately 20% to 96.3 billion francs, indicating continued strength in traditional banking and brokerage operations even as crypto weakened.
Shares fall, clients hold
Markets reacted to the guidance cut with Swissquote shares down 12% in intraday trading after H1 results missed expectations and the bank reduced its full-year targets. Revenue from Swissquote’s crypto business plunged 66% year-over-year to 14.6m Swiss francs, and Jefferies said the entire revenue shortfall versus expectations came from cryptocurrencies. Even as crypto weighed on results, Swissquote said it was not facing a client exodus, adding more than 64,000 clients in six months and attracting 5.1bn Swiss francs in net new money.
LeapRate described the half-year as resilient on the client side, reporting client assets climbing to a record CHF 96.3 billion and net fee and commission income up 13%. Swissquote also said its mobile app Yuh grew its user base by 6.1% to over 423,000 accounts and remained on track for full-year break-even.
Guidance cut, targets unchanged
Swissquote’s first-half results showed net revenues rising 1.7% year over year to CHF 364.2 million, while pre-tax profit slipped 1.2% to CHF 182.9 million and the pre-tax margin stayed above 50% at 50.2%. FinanceFeeds said the headline weakness was crypto, where net income fell 66.2% to CHF 14.6 million as falling digital asset prices and weaker client participation hit volumes and the value of inventory held to support liquidity on Swissquote’s SQX exchange. The bank trimmed its full-year 2026 guidance to net revenues of approximately CHF 730 million and pre-tax profit of about CHF 365 million, down from its previous CHF 760 million target and CHF 385 million pre-tax profit target.
Despite the downgrade, Swissquote kept its longer-term target unchanged, maintaining a CHF 500 million profit goal by 2028. FinanceFeeds also tied the guidance revision to weaker-than-expected conditions in crypto and an assumption that recovery would be gradual toward the end of the second half.