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So what are you telling Mr. Jordan when you meet?

We unfortunately don't agree. We have a dialogue but we don't understand each other. Once more: we are not against negative rates. We would just like to have them impacting the banks in the same way.

When some banks don't pay negative rates, we have to charge our clients, because we just can't pay them ourselves. And some banks are even trying to pass on negative rates they don't incur on to their customers. It happened to me personally.

So, the central bank effectively tell us to either increase the risks on our balance sheet, or the risks of our clients' investments or to pay the negative rates. This is quite frustrating.

So is this the biggest problem in Swiss banking at the moment?

Well, naturally we have other problems, the access to the European market, or the implementation of the exchange of information, there are plenty of challenges; but it's true, this is an example of an administrative decision that penalizes one sector of the industry and it costs us dearly.

Do your clients today have different expectations of their bank than say five years ago?

As I said before, in a world of tax transparency, the support in tax matters are more important. So you need to be well documented and as tax laws frequently change in all the markets, you need to remain on top of the issue. Clients are also much more demanding in terms of performance. We also have the IT questions to tackle, the technological issue and how we communicate with our customers.

Are you worried about losing business to fintech?

No. The technical alternatives maybe more important to Postfinance for example. For banks specialized in wealth management, private portfolios as well as institutional investors, technology is important in respect to the services offered to our clients. Our younger customers also demand online dialogue and generally more technological communication channels. So there you need to be very active in your development. But the heart of our business is conducted through a dialogue, because we need to understand and perceive the needs of our customers.

«Should tomorrow wealth management be conducted via computers, it will be the time for me to retire»

So for the typical retail client, technological alternatives may be an option, but not for the high net worth client who we work with.

Should tomorrow wealth management be conducted via computers, it will be the time for me to retire.

Will the Swiss financial market remain important, despite all the challenges you mentioned?

The Swiss market will remain very strong. After all, we have a lot speaking in our favor as I described earlier. What I worry is that we don't have the access to other markets from Switzerland. The Swiss private banks in recent years hired disproportionally more employees outside Switzerland than in our home market. We would certainly not have opened a bank in Luxembourg if we could have advised our clients in Europe from Switzerland. Hiring in Switzerland for us is cheaper, more efficient, it creates a value added for the Swiss economy, taxes are paid both by employees and the company, but as long as we can't access the market, we will create this wealth outside Switzerland.

So yes, the market will remain strong, but it could be even stronger, if we had the access to the European market from Switzerland. This is a political question of course. We can't make the decisions, but our role is to formulate our needs.

«The relations with Europe will become more complicated»

Unfortunately, once the train is in motion, we won't be able to turn around. Should we get a treaty with Europe in three or five years, we won't be closing our bank in Luxembourg again. That's for sure.

So has it become easier with the result of the last elections?

Of course not. The relations with Europe will become more complicated. And not only for market access. The fact that we will face difficulties hiring people from Europe (following the vote on February 9) together with the problems we sometimes have finding the talent we need in Switzerland make life for us more and more difficult. As an example, instead of hiring the talent we need in asset management (they come from all corners of the world) in our branches in Switzerland, we will put them to work in London or elsewhere. For Switzerland, this is regrettable.

In the last century companies and in particular banks were well represented in politics. How could it happen that the voice of business declined so much?

I suppose the crisis of the financial market contributed to this. The politicians were maybe disappointed about the banks. Even though of course the trend was mainly due to how some banks behaved, we all were affected. So there was a loss of confidence. But today the crisis between Bern and the banks is over. The dialogue is good again.

Yves Mirabaud, born in 1966, is senior partner at Mirabaud, one of the oldest private banks in Switzerland. The institute was founded 1819 in Geneva. Yves Mirabaud has a diploma from the Institut Universitaire des Hautes Etudes Internationales in Geneva. After five years at various banks in Geneva, Zurich, Boston and New York, he joined the family-owned bank in 1993.