Wealth Management in Switzerland

Switzerland’s international leadership in wealth management is no coincidence. In a volatile world, location matters, at least in two ways. The tradition of high-end services, the availability of skilled staff, and a predictable regulatory environment all have contributed to Switzerland’s leading position among global wealth management centres. Importantly, Switzerland provides wealth management banks that are a pillar of market positioning in an increasingly brand-conscious industry. Merging tradition and entrepreneurial spirit has winning ways and, clearly, a profitable edge.

The aim of this paper is to assess how Switzerland compares to its global peers, in what ways swiss wealth management banks differentiate themselves, and which strategic responses to industry threats and opportunities they have espoused. It summarises and presents in a user friendly manner what appears at first sight to be a set of heterogeneous and sometimes conflicting data, surveys, and literature. To illustrate the magnitude of the Swiss wealth management centre, this paper extensively resorts to the use of tables and figures.

Private banking focuses - although not exclusively - on private individuals with large bankable assets (commonly referred to as ‘high net worth individuals’ or HNWIs).

The study is available on :
http://www.swissbanking.org/fr/20081223-300-bro-wealthmanagement2009-rva.pdf