The merger is part of a consolidation trend in the country's private banking industry.

Two Swiss private banks owned by unlimited liability partners, Gonet & Cie and Mourgue d'Algue & Cie, are merging as part of continued consolidation in the Alpine state's sector.

The Geneva-headquartered duo said that the combined business will be led by Nicolas Gonet. The two partners of Mourgue d’Algue & Cie, Pierre-André and Swana Mourgue d’Algue, will join the entity’s senior management and continue to serve clients.

The combined business has capital "well in excess" of Swiss regulatory requirements and oversees a total of SFr5 billion ($5.04 billion) of assets, a statement from the organisations said.

The total number of banks in Switzerland has contracted from over 300 a decade ago to just over 260 (source: Swiss Bankers Association) and a period of negative interest rates. Coupled with the demise of Swiss bank secrecy laws, and rising compliance costs, banks have had to find economies of scale. The trend has seen M&A moves across western and northern Europe in recent months.

While unlimited liability private banks remain a feature of the Swiss market, the number has contracted. In 2014 three such banks, Pictet, Lombard Odier and Mirabaud, shifted to being limited liability firms, arguing that rising business scale and complexity meant that the old unlimited ownership model was no longer suitable. About a year prior to this, venerable Swiss private bank Wegelin - which was an unlimited liability bank - had its US business shut down by criminal prosecutors for aiding tax dodgers, and the remaining Swiss part of that bank was later reconstituted under the Notenstein name.