In the late 19th century Adolf Guyer-Zeller, an engineer and one of the pioneers of Swiss railways, decided to build a railway to the peak of the Jungfrau mountain. He also decided to finance the project by founding a bank which has borne his name ever since.

The bank was purchased by the UK's Midland bank in the 1970s and Midland was purchased by HSBC in the 1990s.

HSBC has maintained the bank as a Swiss bank and a separate entity up until now, even though the trust company has long been functionally a part of HSBC, using the same switchboard in Geneva, for example.

Now the bank has announced that it will merge the venerable Swiss institution with HSBC Private Bank (Suisse) and the Guyerzeller name will disappear. This merger is in line with the recent transfer of ownership of the Luxembourg arm of the bank to Switzerland, further centralising control of private banking in Switzerland.

"It's not a revolution but an evolution," a spokesman for the bank told WealthBriefing. "The merger has already been done by small steps and this just confirms it." The banks have shared IT platforms for some time and have had the same boards two years. The new structure will allow the staff of the old Guyerzeller full access to the products and services of HSBC some of which were denied them previously due to the legal separation between the two entities.

The new entity is now the number three in Swiss private banking, according to HSBC.

Ownership of HSBC Private Bank (Luxembourg) was formally transferred to HSBC Private Bank (Suisse) on 5 September 2008, recognising the existing managerial reporting lines of the Luxembourg entity to the Swiss private banking operation as reported last week by WealthBriefing.

At the Geneva-based private bank, profit before tax in the first half of 2008 increased 1 per cent when compared to the first half of 2007, coming in at SFr423millon. Net new money was SFr6.9billion in the first half of 2008.

Operating income has also held its ground at SFr824million, but operating expenses grew by 5 per cent to SFr408millon which the bank blamed on a 12 per cent rise in personnel expenses linked to a 15 per cent increase in headcount which now stands at 2,615.

The merger with Guyerzeller will not lead to any redundancies according to the bank.