Swiss private banks made easy money in the bull market, when client portfolios soared and, with them, fees. They are in less good shape now.
Falls in assets under management, due to lower markets, is one reason. Then there is the G20 clampdown on tax evasion, which thrust Switzerland's private banks into the limelight – far from where their traditional clients like to be. However much they might complain about foreign interference, Swiss bankers must shoulder much of the blame.
The days when would-be clients presented their credentials at a private bank or were sidled up to at a cocktail party at the Grand Hôtel du Lac are long gone. Marcel Ospel, former chairman and chief executive of UBS, the world's largest private bank, was always clear what he wanted UBS to be: an asset gatherer. Unfortunately, some of the asset-gathering proved indiscriminate. During the tech boom, when private banks began to court the newly affluent, they also moved into industrialised mass-marketing mode. Regiments of salesmen were dispatched abroad. Notions about serving as custodians of wealth were damaged. How else to explain the SFr10bn that Swiss banks and investment managers invested with Madoff? Fund rebates are one clue.