Recently, a large number of Swiss banks decided to adopt a common standard for training their advisers. Their plans are going much further though, research by finews.ch revealed.
The Swiss financial market may be large, but confined to a small area – and everyone knows everybody. Still, banks don't easily cooperate. It came as a surprise when a large number of institutes decided on a common certification for the customer advisers.
Nine Swiss banks – including UBS and Credit Suisse – agreed on the certification, as finews.ch reported. They adopted a standard developped by the country's biggest bank.
Only a Start
With the certifications, banks in the Swiss financial center will have comparable benchmarks for assessing the capabilities and expertise of their representatives in wealth management and in retail and corporate banking, they said last week.
The fact that CS adopted a standard designed by its arch rival came as a surprise. The bank itself doesn't see a change of habit: «The new standard corresponds entirely with the certification CS introduced. In terms of technical knowlegde, the institutes reach a congruence of 80 percent,» said Gerold Andenmatten, head of talent development at Credit Suisse Switzerland (pictured below).
Outsourcing an Option
CS has certified 3'000 customer advisers since 2010. The bank sees an opportunity to influence the standards based on its experiences.
The plans don't stop there though. «An outsourcing of specific parts of training – for example on markets and products – is being considered among participants of the certification program,» said Andenmatten.
International Standard
No decision had been taken so far, he added. Bank as well as training institutes are in principle able to seek a licence from SAQ, the Swiss Association for Quality, creating a future market for country-wide training courses for customer advisers.
Swiss banks might then be tempted to export the Swiss standard. «Internationally, for instance in Asia, we keep to the local standards for certification of customer advisers,» Andenmatten said. «It is possible though to have a cooperation with local regulators to establish an international standard.»
