Zurich is a sober and orderly city, so a fierce altercation near the Swiss National Bank between a banker to the world’s billionaires and a private detective who was trailing him is worthy of John Le Carré. It is all the more lurid that Credit Suisse ordered surveillance of Iqbal Khan after he left abruptly for its rival UBS.
Credit Suisse was worried that Mr Khan, who led an expansion of wealth management there, could take valuable clients and colleagues with him. Cut to Germany, where Deutsche Bank is hoping to recruit several hundred “relationship managers” — financial advisers to the wealthy — to compete with Switzerland’s private banks.
Whenever banks get overexcited about a profitable and expanding area of finance and embark on an expensive talent war, it usually leads to trouble down the road. So it is a fair bet that there will be fallout from this battle over wealth management, the activity that includes private banking.