What the scenarios mean for the professions
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The scenarios have different consequences for the various professions of the financial centre. The wealth manager, at the heart of the Geneva model, will in every scenario see his clientele age and pass on its wealth, his tools transformed by artificial intelligence and his compliance and documentation obligations grow heavier. In the specialised-centre scenario he will concentrate on complex international families, in the erosion scenario he will follow his clients to other financial centres, and in the transformation scenario he will manage tokenised assets for a broader clientele. The commodity trader will see his business shift towards transition metals, alternative fuels and carbon credits, with strengthened compliance, and his presence in Geneva will depend on taxation, sanctions and financing, as Part G has shown.
The Geneva lawyer and notary will in every scenario retain the drafting, advisory and litigation functions described in Part J, with a growing role for English in international commercial disputes and an expanding French-speaking clientele from Africa and the Maghreb. The compliance officer will see his tools transformed and his role extended to crypto-assets and digital assets, to sustainability and to artificial intelligence; his is the function whose importance grows in every scenario. The trustee, the family officer and the tax adviser will accompany the transfer of wealth between generations, within a framework of complete transparency and with a growing demand for family governance structures.
The support professions will experience the most significant changes. Processing, data entry, reporting and first-level analysis functions will be largely automated, as Chapter IV has described, and those who hold them will have to move towards the supervision of the tools or into other functions. Institutions that anticipate this development through training will keep their staff, whereas those that merely undergo it will lose them. For the financial centre as a whole, total employment will depend on the volume of activity, and therefore on the scenario.
| Profession | Specialised centre | Eroded centre | Transformed centre |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wealth manager | complex families, documented advice | follows clients elsewhere | tokenised assets, broader clientele |
| Commodity trader | metals, transition, compliance | relocation to Dubai and Singapore | transition trading from Geneva |
| Lawyer and notary | bilingual drafting, arbitration | restructuring litigation | French-speaking and international growth |
| Compliance | extended role, new tools | role maintained, reduced headcount | central role, advanced technology |
| Support and operations | supervision of tools | job cuts | skilled growth |
For general information only. This article does not constitute legal or tax advice, does not replace advice on an individual case and creates no lawyer-client relationship. It reflects the legal position as of September 2025.