Bank Cler
Bank Cler is a Basel-based Swiss bank founded in 1927. The bank's main area of activity is retail banking for private individuals and small and medium-sized companies. Until it became a wholly owned subsidiary of Basler Kantonalbank in 2019 the bank's shares were listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange.
History
Today's Bank Cler was founded on 30 October 1927 by the Association of Swiss Consumers together with the Swiss Federation of Trade Unions as a cooperative central bank – Genossenschaftliche Zentralbank. In 1970, the delegates' meeting of the members of the cooperative decided to transform the company into a stock corporation.In 1995 the bank's name was changed to Coop Bank. On 20 December 1999, the Basler Kantonalbank purchased a controlling stake in the bank, and in 2001, the name was changed to Bank Coop. As of the end of 2009, the Basler Kantonalbank held a 57.6% share of the bank's stock; a further 10.4% was held by the former parent company – Coop, 5.1% by Swiss trade union associations and 1.1% by the bank in its trading portfolio and in financial investments. The rest of the stock was in free float.
In March 2017, Coop sold its remaining shares to the Basler Kantonalbank. On 20 May 2017, the institution undertook a comprehensive rebranding and became Bank Cler, Romansh for "transparent, simple, clear".
On 20 June 2018, the Basler Kantonalbank announced that it wanted to take over 100% of Bank Cler. In October 2018, Cler was certified as climate neutral. In November 2018, SIX approved the delisting of the bank's shares. Payment transactions were outsourced to Swisscom as of September 2019.