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Guide · As of October 2026

Exporting your bank statement: camt.053, CSV or PDF from Swiss e-banking

If you want to analyse your spending without giving an app your bank login, you need your transactions as a file. Many Swiss banks offer an export for this in e-banking. Here is how the formats differ, how to find the export and what to watch for in CSV files.

Written by Nikola Marković, the developer of FinanzPilot. The format details come from the Swiss Payment Standards published by SIX.

· 8 min read

In short

  • camt.053 is the account statement as an XML file following the international ISO 20022 standard. It contains the account, the balances and every booking in a fixed structure. The Swiss Payment Standards describe how Switzerland uses it.
  • CSV is a simple table. But the columns, separators and date format differ from bank to bank.
  • PDF is made for reading. It can only be processed automatically if it contains text and is not a scanned image.
  • Where the export sits in e-banking differs from bank to bank and changes with new versions. Look for words like "Export", "Download", "Statement" or "camt", or their German equivalents.

1. The formats at a glance

XML, ISO 20022

camt.053

The account statement in a standardised structure: account, opening and closing balance, every booking with date, amount and direction. The most reliable for an import.

Table

CSV

Opens in any spreadsheet. Every bank has its own column layout, and sometimes a few lines with account details come before the columns.

Document

PDF

Good for filing and reading. Only suitable for an import if the PDF contains text, meaning it comes straight from e-banking and is not a photo or scan.

2. camt.053 and its relatives

ISO 20022 is an international standard for financial messages. For messages from a bank to its customers it describes three formats you may come across in e-banking:

  • camt.053, "Bank-to-Customer Statement": the account statement the bank uses to report on the account. It contains the account identification, the IBAN at many banks, the booked opening and closing balances and the individual bookings.
  • camt.054, "Debit/Credit Notification": debit and credit advices, and the details of batch bookings, for example when several payments appear as one booking.
  • camt.052, "Account Report": an account report during the day (intraday), for example hourly or at fixed times. The Swiss Payment Standards count it among the cash management messages.

Not every bank offers all three. According to the Swiss Payment Standards, camt.052 and camt.054 are not offered by every financial institution. Batch bookings can be broken down within the camt.053 itself or in a separate camt.054. For your own bookkeeping, camt.053 is the statement to use.

Older systems still know formats such as MT940. The Swiss Payment Standards list it as an alternative message to camt.053.

Source: SIX, Swiss Payment Standards, implementation guidelines for bank-to-customer reports («Schweizer Implementation Guidelines für Kunde-Bank-Meldungen (Reports)»), SPS 2025 version 2.2 (valid since 22 November 2025), chapters 1.3, 2.1–2.3 and 3.9.

3. How to find the export

Menus and labels differ at every bank, and they change with new versions of e-banking. That is why we deliberately don't list click paths for individual banks. This is the general approach:

  1. Open the account. In e-banking or the banking app, choose the account and show its transactions or statements.
  2. Look for the export. Watch for "Export", "Download", "Statement" (in German: «Export», «Herunterladen», «Kontoauszug») or directly for "camt.053", "XML" or "ISO 20022". If you find nothing, search your bank's help for these terms or ask the bank.
  3. Choose the period. For example, last month. If two exports overlap, that is no problem in FinanzPilot: duplicate transactions are recognised.
  4. Save the file. On the iPhone in the Files app, for example in iCloud Drive. If you downloaded it on a computer, get it to the iPhone via iCloud Drive or AirDrop.

4. Reading CSV files correctly

There is no common CSV template among banks. Before an app or a spreadsheet understands the file correctly, these need to be clear:

  • Separator: semicolon, comma or tab between the columns.
  • Numbers: amounts can contain thousands separators, in Switzerland often an apostrophe as in 1’234.50.
  • Date: 31.12.2026 or 2026-12-31, and sometimes two date columns, booking date and value date.
  • Amount and direction: one column with a sign, or two columns for debit and credit. On credit cards, spending is sometimes positive.
  • Preamble: some banks put a few lines with the account and period above the column names.

That is exactly why camt.053 is easier to import, if your bank offers it: its structure is fixed.

5. Handle the file with care

A statement shows where you shop, what you earn and who you send money to. Only store it in places you control, and don't pass it around by e-mail, not even to a support team. To report a problem, the header line of a CSV file, meaning the column names, without any transactions, is almost always enough.

6. How FinanzPilot reads your file

FinanzPilot is our app for your money in Switzerland, for iPhone and iPad. Under Day to day → Import it reads your exports, entirely on the device and without a bank login:

  • camt.053 and camt.054 are recognised automatically. FinanzPilot matches the account by its IBAN and offers the closing balance from the statement as the account balance ("Use as account balance").
  • CSV from UBS (account and credit card), PostFinance, Raiffeisen and Swissquote is recognised too. For any other bank you map the columns once: FinanzPilot proposes date, amount or debit and credit, description, date format and separators, and you check the preview. The mapping is saved, so the next import from the same bank is one tap.
  • PDF statements are read if they contain text. Scanned PDFs don't work.
  • Nothing twice: FinanzPilot recognises transactions you have already imported and doesn't count them again. You can pick several files at once, send a file via "Share → FinanzPilot" or simply paste CSV text.
  • Foreign currency: accounts in, say, EUR are converted to CHF with the rate from the file or a rate you enter. Without a rate, nothing is booked as CHF.

What FinanzPilot does not do: it doesn't connect to your bank, doesn't fetch statements automatically and never moves money. If your bank isn't recognised, see the support entry "My bank is not recognised".

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7. Common problems

  • The file is a scan. A photographed or scanned statement has no text. Download the statement straight from e-banking, preferably as camt.053 or CSV.
  • Spending shows up as income. The sign is reversed in this file, often with credit cards. In FinanzPilot you switch it in the column mapping under "Sign".
  • The credit card bill counts twice. Once as the purchases on the card, once as the bill paid from the account. FinanzPilot recognises credit card bills as transfers during the import.
  • The file isn't recognised. Check that you really exported the statement as camt.053 and not another document. For CSV, the one-time column mapping helps.
  • The balance doesn't match. An export only covers the period you chose. With camt.053, the closing balance is in the statement itself.

8. Sources

Retrieved on 27 October 2026.

  1. SIX Interbank Clearing: Swiss Payment Standards, implementation guidelines for customer reports: camt.052, camt.053, camt.054 (PDF, German, SPS 2025 version 2.2 of 24 February 2025, valid since 22 November 2025). Purpose of the messages, balances, batch bookings, alternatives such as MT940.
  2. SIX Interbank Clearing: the same guidelines, SPS 2026 version 2.3 (PDF, German, 20 February 2026, valid from 14 November 2026). No change relevant to this guide.
  3. FinanzPilot: help in the app (More → Help → Import) and the support page. What the app does when importing.

General information

This page explains the formats in general terms and without guarantee. Your bank knows which exports it offers and where to find them. We don't recommend any particular bank or product.

As of October 2026. Found a mistake? Write to us: support@komovi.ch.

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