Swiss private banks urged to find partners in ‘complex’ world

SINGAPORE (Oct 1): Switzerland’s diminishing band of mid-sized private banks should consider teaming up with other firms to expand in Asia and tap into the business of managing the wealth of the region’s millionaires, according to the chairman of the Swiss banking association.

Since the global financial crisis and the end of banking secrecy, smaller Swiss wealth managers have faced heightened competition and swelling regulatory costs, making it tougher for them to spend money on forays overseas, Herbert J. Scheidt said in an interview in Singapore.

“When the outside pressures continue in the same way as they have over the last 10 years, there are undoubtedly some banks who feel either to partner, or to exchange their equity with another bank” is a sensible approach, said Scheidt. For Swiss banks considering expanding in Asia, “it makes a lot of sense to engage in partnerships because the world’s too complex to regard everything just as competition.”

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