Switzerland's banking lobby urgently needs to sharpen its profile, including setting up a concept for how Swiss finance can thrive after abandoning secrecy, Swiss parliamentarian Thomas Aeschi told finews.ch in an interview. He also outlined the ideal candidate to succeed current Chairman Patrick Odier.
An upcoming decision for a new chairman of the Swiss Bankers Association, or SBA, is a chance to start afresh after the organization's standing and influence has slipped in recent years, said Thomas Aeschi, who represents the right-wing Swiss People's Party (SVP) in parliament.
«I see the new chairman as a turnaround manager who can analyse the situation, evaluate strengths and weaknesses, including looking at the regulatory situation, set a 20-year strategy for the Swiss financial center, and bring the association back on a successful track,» Aeschi, who is a leading voice of Swiss economic and business issues, told finews.ch in an interview.
Critical of Lobby's Work
Aeschi didn't spare criticism of the current leadership under Odier, who has ushered Swiss banking through one of the most tumultuous periods in its history. Swiss banks have in recent years paid billions of francs in fines, mainly to U.S. officials, to escape prosecution for offering offshore accounts used for tax fraud and evasion.
«The lobby has been weak, I can't recollect having much interaction with them in the past four years, and the president hasn't been very visible to us.»
A one-time Credit Suisse banker, Aeschi has been a vocal proponent in Berne of Switzerland's financial center, both publicly and behind the scenes in order to patch up relations between finance and politics.
Several names for the position made vacant by Odier's return to Lombard Odier have circulated in media reports and banking circles.
Rifts Open
The lobby has traditionally been enormously influential on major issues facing Swiss banking, such as Holocaust assets in dormant Swiss accounts. But the group has struggled recently to unite the various Swiss financial players after pressure on Switzerland's banking secrecy laws opened up rifts between banks, asset managers and a host of related professionals like tax lawyers.
«It's not just about electing a new head, and whether that person is French- or German-speaking. We need someone who can make a fresh start, fundamentally examining who we are as an industry, what we want to represent and where we're going in the next 10 to 15 years,» Aeschi said.
Rubik, Asset Management Run Aground
Specifically, initiatives that the Swiss banking lobby has backed such as Rubik, a scheme of bilateral tax agreements to make amends for harboring undeclared tax assets in the past, or another to rejuvenate Switzerland's finance industry through asset management have foundered.
In Bern, where a large part of the lobby's work is carried behind the scenes in the hopes of finance-friendly legislation and regulation, Aeschi says the lobby has been conspicuous by its absence and often wrong-footed by sweeping changes to hit Switzerland and constantly reactive, instead of proactive.
Perfect Candidate
Aeschi has a specific view of what qualities Odier's successor needs to posses to unite various factions that have become obvious between major, systemically relevant players like UBS and Credit Suisse and much smaller banks largely focused on regional business, like cantonal banks.
«The new chairman needs to be a banker in order for the industry to accept them, perhaps not from either of the large banks but someone from the middle who knows both the large and small players and feels comfortable representing them, experience in associations would be helpful, a very good communicator, and also have enough time to devote to the job,» Aeschi says.
Full-Time Job
Aeschi says the lobby should consider upgrading the job to a full-time one – presidents until now have traditionally worked at the lobby alongside their roles as bankers. Odier is a managing partner at Lombard Odier, his predecessor, Pierre Mirabaud, was a partner at Mirabaud & Cie.
«We need someone who can bring the players to the table and unite them in a compromise for the important issues that the industry faces.»
