Client Managers To CIS/Russia Market Are Nervous About Swiss Banks - Report

Some senior private bankers with clients in the CIS/Russia segment avoid working at traditional Swiss banks and prefer other options due to concerns about the ongoing crackdown on the Alpine state’s tax haven status, a recruitment firm says.

“Due to the instability of the current market in Switzerland, many senior private bankers, particularly in the CIS/Russian segment, are more interested in looking at alternative institutions,” according to Carlton Senior Appointments, which issued a briefing note on the Swiss market and sent exclusively to this publication.

The document examines the environment for bankers with clients in Eastern Europe, pointing out that Russian authorities, for example, will from January 2013 have the power to obtain data of Russian nationals using Swiss accounts. The report states that this new power may already cause a “large amount of movement in these [CIS/Russian] markets in Switzerland”.

One consequence will be that many banks will refocus attention on Middle Eastern markets, especially via Geneva, the report said.

As explained at this publication (see here) recently, Switzerland’s traditional bank secrecy laws, which in their current form date to 1934, are under assault, prompting the industry to change its business models.

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