How Swiss private banks can survive in highly regulated markets

• Main Author: Svoboda, Andreas
• Published: University of Liverpool 2017
• Subjects: 332.109494
• Online Access: https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.722070

The viability of Swiss banking secrecy has been and is being challenged. Politically the America pushes the lifting of the Swiss banking as of tax evasion. Macro-economically, it is observed that the number of Swiss private banks declined by 24% from 2005 to 2013 and the speed of consolidation in the market increased in 2014 (Collardi, 2015). Therefore, how the Swiss banking sector maintains its competence and financial status without the viability of banking secrecy is without doubt worthy to be researched. The whole thesis devotes to explore over the following two research questions: • Is the Swiss banking secrecy still viable? • Ways forward without the viability of Swiss banking secrecy. In particular, the second research question accounts for the main body of the study. It has been broken up into three sub-research themes, which illustrate from perspectives of products offered, commissions taken as well as location. Methodologically both quantitative analysis and qualitative case study were carried out to achieve convincing findings and actionable knowledge. It can be concluded that viability of banking secrecy is still viable but only for the privacy purpose. And it is believed to disappear in the near future. The findings reveal that Swiss private banks should shift their products strategies from in-house labelled products to open platforms; commission policy should be taken transparent and the function of relationship managers should be enhanced. Furthermore, possible actionable knowledge plans are being suggested. The novelty of the thesis lies in, that it explores the problem from a new perspective. It concentrates on the actionable variables instead of focusing on financial performance indicators. Nevertheless, it provides an actionable guidance for the Swiss banking sector on how to maintain or improve the financial performance without the viability of banking secrecy in the near future.