The complete text of Dr Alexander Ressos’s study of Geneva as an international financial centre — from the medieval fairs, Calvin and the Refuge to private banking, International Geneva, commodity trading, Africa, the French language and the outlook to 2035 — translated from the French edition “Genève, place financière internationale” and published here chapter by chapter.
The complete text of Dr Alexander Ressos’s study of Geneva as an international financial centre — from the medieval fairs, Calvin and the Refuge to private banking, International Geneva, commodity trading, Africa, the French language and the outlook to 2035 — translated from the French edition “Genève, place financière internationale” and published here chapter by chapter.
Each section of the book appears here as a separate article, with its footnotes, in the order of the book. The articles can be read on their own; the part pages collect the chapters of each part.
Preface
Geneva occupies a place in the financial geography of the world that bears no relation to its size. Read more Geneva · Geneva before the ReformationA site, a bridge, a lake: the geography of a trading centre — overview and summary
Every financial centre begins with a place, and every place begins with a constraint. Read more Geneva · Geneva before the ReformationThe lock of Lake Geneva
The Rhône leaves Lake Geneva at Geneva. This geographical commonplace has governed the history of the city for two millennia. Read more Geneva · Geneva before the ReformationCaesar’s bridge and the memory of crossings
The first written mention of Geneva concerns precisely this bridge. When, in the spring of the year 58 BC, the Helvetii prepared to migrate westwards by crossing the territory of the Allobroges,… Read more Geneva · Geneva before the ReformationThree powers and a margin of freedom
At the end of the Middle Ages, authority over Geneva was shared between three principal actors. Read more Geneva · Geneva before the ReformationThe routes: Rhine, Plateau, Alps and Rhône
The Geneva fairs took off at the moment when the great commercial system of the Champagne fairs, which had dominated European trade in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, was entering its decline. Read more Geneva · Geneva before the ReformationA growing city: suburbs, communities and exclusions
The prosperity of the fairs brought strong demographic growth. It made Geneva the principal city of the region, a rank it would retain until the middle of the nineteenth century, and led to the… Read more Geneva · Geneva before the ReformationA service economy before the term existed
What is a trading centre? The question seems simple; it lies at the heart of this book. Read more Geneva · Geneva before the ReformationCoins, weights and trust
The medieval fairs took place in a monetary universe of a complexity that is hard to imagine today. Every sovereign, and sometimes every bishop or every town, struck its own coinage. Read more Geneva · Geneva before the ReformationGeography as a lasting advantage
What remains of this geography today? A great deal more than one might think. The canton of Geneva is still a cramped territory, almost entirely surrounded by France and connected to the rest of… Read more Geneva · Geneva before the ReformationThe cost of passage: tolls, escorts and the risks of the journey
For the medieval merchant, the choice of Geneva as a staging post was the result of a calculation whose components are known, even though the amounts varied greatly according to period, route and… Read more Geneva · Geneva before the ReformationChecklist: reading the geography of a financial centre
Identify the flows on which the centre lives and check that they do not depend on a single route, a single partner or a single external authorisation. Read more Geneva · Geneva before the ReformationThe Geneva fairs: goods, currencies and bills of exchange — overview and summary
In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Geneva became one of the great meeting places of European commerce. Read more Geneva · Geneva before the ReformationFrom regional fair to international fair
The word “fair” covers a variety of realities. The Dictionnaire historique de la Suisse (Historical Dictionary of Switzerland) points out that fairs are held on fixed dates in public places and are… Read more Geneva · Geneva before the ReformationWhat was sold: a luxury market
According to the Dictionnaire historique de la Suisse (Historical Dictionary of Switzerland), luxury products dominated the goods on offer: textiles, notably cloth and silks, spices and dyestuffs,… Read more Geneva · Geneva before the ReformationThe players: merchants, factors and companies
The Geneva fairs brought together a great variety of players whose roles were quite distinct. The great Italian trading and banking companies kept permanent or seasonal representatives there. Read more Geneva · Geneva before the ReformationThe mechanics of a fair
A great medieval fair followed a relatively codified sequence, which is known above all from the example of the Champagne fairs and, later, those of Lyon. Read more Geneva · Geneva before the ReformationExchange: from the table to the account
The Geneva fairs took place in a fragmented monetary universe. Gold and silver coins of every origin circulated there: Florentine florins, Venetian ducats, French écus, Savoyard coins, German coins,… Read more Geneva · Geneva before the ReformationThe bill of exchange: a quiet revolution
The most important instrument of the medieval fairs was a simple document: the bill of exchange. Read more Geneva · Geneva before the ReformationThe Medici in Geneva
The opening of a Medici branch in Geneva in 1424 illustrates the importance the fairs had acquired. The Medici bank was at that time on its way to becoming the most powerful in Europe. Read more Geneva · Geneva before the ReformationThe justice of the merchants
A fair cannot function without swift and reliable justice. Merchants passing through cannot wait months for a court to settle their dispute; they have to move on to other fairs. Read more Geneva · Geneva before the ReformationWhat the fairs left behind
The Geneva fairs declined from the 1460s onwards for reasons the next chapter analyses. They nevertheless left a lasting legacy, extending well beyond monuments and archives. Read more Geneva · Geneva before the ReformationThe merchants’ accounts: double entry, balance sheets and control
The Italian companies present at the Geneva fairs stood out for the breadth of their networks and for a technique that gave them a decisive advantage: double-entry bookkeeping. Read more Geneva · Geneva before the ReformationChecklist: assessing a cross-border payment or credit instrument
Identify all the parties to the transaction and their exact role, in the manner of the four parties to a bill of exchange. Read more Geneva · Geneva before the ReformationLyon against Geneva: the end of the fairs and the anatomy of a financial centre in crisis — overview and summary
In 1462, a King of France decided that his merchants would no longer go to Geneva. Within a few years, the city lost a large part of the traffic that had made its prosperity. Read more Geneva · Geneva before the ReformationLyon, a royal creation
The rivalry between Geneva and Lyon did not begin with Louis XI. It was rooted in the determination of the kings of France to endow their kingdom with a great fair centre capable of capturing the… Read more Geneva · Geneva before the Reformation1462–1463: the economic war of Louis XI
Louis XI came to the throne in 1461. From his accession, he surrounded himself with an informal council of finances, made up of specialists in budgetary, economic and financial questions. Read more Geneva · Geneva before the ReformationThe response: the Confederates, Savoy and diplomacy
Geneva could not answer on the same ground. The city had neither an army capable of reopening the routes nor any means of bringing pressure to bear on the kingdom of France. Read more Geneva · Geneva before the ReformationWhy Geneva lost: the multiple causes of the decline
It would be reductive to attribute the decline of the Geneva fairs solely to the decision of Louis XI. Read more Geneva · Geneva before the ReformationLyon, great banking centre of the sixteenth century
Lyon’s success was confirmed at the turn of the sixteenth century. The city became the principal financial centre of the kingdom of France and one of the great banking centres of Europe. Read more Geneva · Geneva before the ReformationAnatomy of a financial-centre crisis: a framework for analysis
The history of the Geneva fairs makes it possible to derive a framework for analysis that can be applied to other financial-centre crises, whether historical or contemporary. Read more Geneva · Geneva before the ReformationContemporary echoes
The framework just described sheds light on several recent episodes in the history of the Swiss and Genevan financial centre. Read more Geneva · Geneva before the ReformationWhat Geneva learned from it
The experience of the fairs left a political lesson in Geneva’s memory: an isolated merchant city is at the mercy of its neighbours. Read more Geneva · Geneva before the ReformationThe instruments of economic warfare, then and now
The measures taken by Louis XI in 1462 and 1463 form an arsenal each element of which has a contemporary equivalent. The following table offers a comparative reading. Read more Geneva · Geneva before the ReformationChecklist: diagnosing the vulnerability of a financial centre
Identify the decisions of third states liable to restrict the access of the centre’s clients or institutions, and estimate their probability. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditGeneva in the age of the Reformation (1519-1541): from combourgeoisie to Protestant Republic — overview and summary
Within the space of a generation, between 1519 and 1541, Geneva changed its nature. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditA weakened city under Savoyard pressure
At the beginning of the sixteenth century, Geneva emerged diminished from the long decline of its fairs. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditEidguenots and Mammelus: the battle of the alliances
The two parties received nicknames that convey the intensity of the conflict. The supporters of the Swiss alliance were called “Eidguenots”, after the German word Eidgenossen, which designates the… Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditFrom political emancipation to religious rupture
Between 1526 and 1535, Geneva gradually freed itself from its old powers. The bishop, Pierre de La Baume, whose position wavered between the citizens and the duke, lost his authority and eventually… Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of credit1536: independence and the choice of the Gospel
The religious rupture provoked a Savoyard reaction. The duke tightened the blockade of the city, whose provisioning became difficult. Geneva called on Bern for help. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditCalvin’s first stay and the expulsion (1536–1538)
It was in this context that an event occurred which would change the history of the city. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditThe Strasbourg exile (1538–1541)
After his expulsion, Calvin went to Strasbourg at the invitation of the reformer Martin Bucer. There he became pastor of the church of the French refugees. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditThe recall of 1541: a contract between a reformer and a city
During Calvin’s absence, Geneva went through a period of instability. Factions confronted one another. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditThe economy of a besieged republic
In the 1530s and 1540s, the young Republic of Geneva faced a difficult economic situation. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditRefugees, capital and skills: the first waves
From the 1540s onwards, Geneva took in a growing number of religious refugees. The city attracted thousands of Protestants from across Europe, and its reputation earned it the nickname of the… Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditWhat the Reformation changed for business
The Reformation altered the framework of Geneva’s economic life in several ways. The first concerns the calendar. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditAn independence under threat: Geneva and Savoy after 1536
The independence won in 1536 long remained precarious. The House of Savoy did not renounce its claims on Geneva. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditChecklist: assessing the institutional autonomy of a financial centre
Identify the authorities that actually hold the power to legislate, to adjudicate and to tax, and verify that their competences are clearly delimited. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditCalvin the jurist: training, Ordinances and civil order — overview and summary
Posterity has remembered Calvin the theologian, the preacher and the polemicist. It has often forgotten the lawyer. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditNoyon, Paris, Orléans, Bourges: a humanist and legal education
Jehan Cauvin was born on 10 July 1509 in Noyon, in Picardy. His father, Gérard Cauvin, held a prominent position in the town: apostolic secretary to the Bishop of Noyon, procurator of the chapter of… Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditLegal humanism: returning to the sources
To understand Calvin’s way of reasoning, his training must be placed within the great movement of renewal in legal scholarship that marked the beginning of the sixteenth century. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditFrom conversion to the Institutes
In the early 1530s, Calvin embraced the ideas of the Reformation. He would later speak, in the preface to his commentary on the Psalms, of a “sudden conversion”, without specifying its date. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditCivil government according to Calvin
The last chapter of the Institution is devoted to civil government. It is one of the most influential political texts of the sixteenth century. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditThe Ecclesiastical Ordinances of 1541
On his return to Geneva in 1541, Calvin presented the Council with a draft set of ordinances intended to organise the Church. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditCalvin as adviser to the civil legislator
Calvin’s law-making activity was not confined to ecclesiastical questions. His legal training led the Genevan authorities to seek his assistance in drafting civil texts. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditLaw, equity and good faith in business
At the heart of Calvin’s legal and moral thought lies the notion of equity. For the reformer, the rule of love of one’s neighbour, summed up in the golden rule — do unto others as you would have them… Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditFrom jurist to moralist of the economy
Calvin’s legal training sheds light, finally, on his position on lending at interest, which will be the subject of the next chapter. Several features of his method converge there. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditNotaries, procurators and magistrates: the world of law in Calvin’s Geneva
Calvin’s Geneva was a city in which law occupied a considerable place in daily life. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditCalvin, money and the responsibility of the magistrate
Calvin’s reflection on money forms part of his doctrine of civil government. Money is a human institution, whose value is guaranteed by public authority. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditChecklist: translating the requirement of equity into the governance of a financial institution
Formulate rules of conduct that are clear, brief and accessible, with their purpose made explicit so as to facilitate their application to unforeseen situations. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditCalvin and lending at interest: texts, doctrine and Geneva practice — overview and summary
No question has contributed as much to Calvin’s economic reputation as that of lending at interest. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditThe inheritance: the prohibition of usury
For most of the Middle Ages, the Church condemned lending at interest. This condemnation rested on several foundations. The first was philosophical. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditCalvin’s texts
Calvin’s thinking on lending at interest is found in several kinds of text: a letter of consultation, often referred to as the “letter on usury”, biblical commentaries and sermons. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditThe trade of the lender: a persistent distrust
Calvin’s tolerance of lending for a return does not extend to the profession of lender. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditThe legal rate in Geneva
The historiographical tradition reports that Geneva set, in Calvin’s time, a maximum interest rate of 5 per cent, and that this rate was raised later in the century. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditFrom the pulpit to the shop: Geneva practice
Doctrine does not tell the whole story. To understand the place of credit in Calvin’s Geneva, one must examine practice, as it appears in the judicial and consistorial archives. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditThe legacy: from tolerated credit to organised credit
After Calvin, reflection on lending at interest continued in the Reformed world. His successors in Geneva, beginning with Théodore de Bèze, maintained a position of regulated tolerance. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditAnnuities, pledges and sales with a right of repurchase: the forms of credit in the sixteenth century
Sixteenth-century credit took a variety of legal forms, several of which made it possible to remunerate a capitalist without concluding a loan in the strict sense. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditCredit, the community and the refugees
The influx of refugees, from the 1540s and above all the 1550s, transformed the Geneva credit market. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditReading Calvin through the eyes of a banker today
The criteria that Calvin formulated for judging a loan can be set alongside the principles that financial institutions apply today, under the influence of the law, of supervision and of society’s… Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditCalvin, Geneva and public debt
The question of credit concerned private individuals and, just as much, the young Republic of Geneva, which itself had to borrow to finance its defence, repay its allies and cope with food shortages. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditA reading grid for practitioners: characterising a credit transaction
The Geneva tradition of characterising transactions, inherited from the magistrates of the sixteenth century, retains its practical usefulness. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditChecklist: structuring a fair credit
Characterise the purpose of the credit: financing of a productive activity, acquisition of an asset, consumer need or situation of distress. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditDiscipline, work and relief: the institutions of Reformed Geneva — overview and summary
Calvin’s Geneva was also a set of institutions that for generations shaped the conduct of its inhabitants, their relationship to work and money, the care of the poor, the education of the elites and… Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditThe Consistory at work
Established by the Ecclesiastical Ordinances of 1541, the Consistory brought together the pastors and the elders and met regularly to examine conduct judged contrary to Christian morality. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditWork as a vocation
Calvin’s theology values work. Every Christian is called by God to serve in a particular station, and the conscientious performance of the duties of that station constitutes a form of divine service. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditThe Hôpital général
The reorganisation of poor relief is one of the most lasting achievements of the Geneva Reformation. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditThe Bourse française
The influx of French refugees posed a particular problem. Many arrived destitute, and the Hôpital général, financed from the city’s resources, could not take charge of them all. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditGeneva printing
Printing was the great industry of Calvinist Geneva. Before the Reformation, the city had a few workshops. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditThe Collège and the Académie
In 1559, Geneva founded its Collège and its Académie. The Collège provided secondary education, in particular Latin, Greek and letters. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditThe networks of Reformed Geneva
The Geneva institutions gave rise to an international network. The Compagnie des pasteurs (Company of Pastors) corresponded with the Reformed churches of France, the Netherlands, Scotland, England,… Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditAn ambivalent legacy
The institutions of Reformed Geneva left the financial centre a rich and ambivalent legacy. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditTrades, guilds and the regulation of the crafts
The rise of the industries carried by the refugees led the Geneva authorities to organise the trades. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditPrice control and the food supply
The security of supply preoccupied the Geneva authorities. The city depended on its neighbours for its grain, its wine, its salt and its timber. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditArchives as infrastructure: registers, notaries and memory
The Geneva institutions produced a considerable mass of archives: registers of the Council, registers of the Consistory, books of habitants and bourgeois, notarial minutes, accounts of the Hôpital… Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditDiscipline put to the test: resistance, compromise and change
Calvinist discipline did not establish itself without resistance. During the first decade after Calvin’s return, a section of the old Genevan families opposed the influence of the pastors and the… Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditWomen in the economy of Reformed Geneva
Women held an important place in the Genevan economy of the sixteenth century, even though their legal capacity was limited. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditInstitutions that endure
Several of the institutions created or reorganised at the time of the Reformation have survived the centuries in renewed forms. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditCharity, taxation and solidarity: a Genevan arrangement
Genevan welfare in the sixteenth century combined public resources with private contributions. The Hôpital général lived on secularised ecclesiastical property and on the means of the Republic; Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditChecklist: building sound philanthropic governance
Define clearly the mission of the foundation or philanthropic fund, as well as the intended beneficiaries. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditFrom Weber to the present day: the Protestant ethic and the spirit of the financial centre — overview and summary
Few books in the social sciences have exercised an influence comparable to that of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditMax Weber’s thesis
Max Weber published his essay in two instalments, in 1904 and 1905, in a social science journal that he co-edited, and later revised and expanded it in his works on the sociology of religion. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditThe criticisms
Weber’s thesis attracted criticism from the moment of its publication. The objections can be grouped into several families. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditRecent quantitative work
Since the 2000s, economists have taken up the question again with the tools of historical econometrics. Two contributions deserve mention. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditAnd Geneva?
What can be drawn from this debate for understanding the Geneva financial centre? Several conclusions stand out. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditWhat remains: five traits of a financial centre’s culture
Beyond the academic debate, the Calvinist tradition has left in the culture of the Geneva financial centre traits that observers still note. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditThe ethics of wealth management today
The question Weber raised — the link between values and economic behaviour — arises today in new terms. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditGeneva in the mirror of other financial centres
Comparison with other financial centres helps to assess the respective weight of religion and of other factors. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditThree misconceptions about Calvin and finance
The first misconception holds that Calvin invented banking. The preceding chapters have shown that banking existed well before him, in the Italian cities and at the Geneva fairs themselves, and that… Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditValues and incentives: what research tells us about banking culture
Weber’s question – the influence of values on economic behaviour – has been taken up by experimental research on the banking sector itself. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditFrom the ethic of stewardship to fiduciary duties
The Calvinist conception of wealth as stewardship has found a legal translation in modern law: the fiduciary duties of those who manage the property of others. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditWhat Part B contributes to the rest of the book
Part B has brought to light five legacies of the Reformation that the following parts will encounter again in various forms. Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditOpen questions for research
The file on Calvin and the Geneva economy remains open. Several lines of research would merit further investigation, and practitioners interested in the history of their financial centre could… Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditAn ethic for a financial centre open to the world
The tradition of stewardship today poses a particular question for a financial centre that serves clients from all over the world: how can the welcoming of foreign wealth be reconciled with the… Read more Geneva · Calvin and the moral economy of creditChecklist: assessing the culture of a wealth management institution
The Calvinist Reformation profoundly transformed Geneva. It gave the city its independence, its institutions, its culture and its international network. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankThe waves of the Refuge and the Geneva Fabrique — overview and summary
For more than two centuries, Geneva was a place of refuge for persecuted Protestants. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankFrom the first to the second Refuge
Historians usually distinguish two great waves of Protestant refugees in Geneva. The first Refuge corresponds to the sixteenth century, and in particular to the 1550s and 1560s, when persecution in… Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankThe revocation of the Edict of Nantes and the Huguenot exodus
In October 1685, Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes by the Edict of Fontainebleau. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankGeneva, a city of transit and refuge under surveillance
The mass arrival of refugees placed Geneva in a delicate position. The Republic wished to assist its co-religionists, in keeping with its tradition and its identity. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankThe cost and the return of refuge
Taking in refugees has a cost. They must be housed, fed and cared for, and sometimes helped to establish themselves. These expenses weigh on public finances and on the institutions of welfare. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankThe Fabrique: watchmaking and jewellery
In the eighteenth century, the Genevans used the name “Fabrique” to designate the whole range of trades connected with watchmaking, jewellery, goldsmithing, engraving, enamelling and related… Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankIndiennes and gilt thread: export industries
Alongside the Fabrique, other export industries developed in Geneva during the eighteenth century. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankA stratified society: citizens, burghers, natives, residents
The prosperity of the eighteenth century went hand in hand with a pronounced social and legal stratification. The population of Geneva was divided into several categories with different rights. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankFrom manufacturing to finance: Genevan accumulation
In the course of the eighteenth century, part of the fortunes born of trade and manufacturing turned towards finance. Several reasons explain this movement. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankGenevan trade in the eighteenth century: routes, products and partners
Genevan trade in the eighteenth century rested on a twofold movement. The city exported valuable manufactured goods — watches, jewellery, enamels, indiennes, gilt thread — to France, Italy, Germany,… Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankVoltaire, Rousseau and the image of Geneva
The eighteenth century was also the century in which Geneva became a centre of European intellectual life. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankThe integration of refugees into the elites
Families of refugee origin did not remain outside power. Over the generations, many acquired burgher status and then allied themselves with the old families through marriage. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankThe Fabrique faces competition: the Jura, Neuchâtel and France
The prosperity of the Genevan Fabrique attracted imitators. In the course of the eighteenth century, watchmaking developed in the Neuchâtel mountains and in the Jura, notably at Le Locle and La… Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankThe refugees and the birth of cross-border wealth advice
The Huguenot exodus created a new demand: for advisers capable of helping dispersed families to manage assets located in several countries. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankChecklist: assessing the economic effects of welcoming foreign talent
Take stock of the skills and capital brought by the new arrivals and set them against the needs of the local economy. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankThe Protestant Bank: Huguenot networks from Geneva to London — overview and summary
In the eighteenth century, a significant part of French high finance was in the hands of Protestant bankers, whether French, Genevan or Swiss, even though Protestantism was prohibited in the kingdom. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankWhat Herbert Lüthy called the “Protestant Bank”
The expression “Banque protestante” (Protestant Bank) is associated with the Swiss historian Herbert Lüthy, who devoted to it a two-volume study published between the late 1950s and the early 1960s. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankThe ingredients of a network: family, faith, correspondence
The network of the Protestant Bank rested on several ingredients, whose combination explains its effectiveness. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankGeneva within the network: a centre of capital and refuge
Geneva occupies a singular position within the network of Protestant banking. Paris and, to a lesser extent, Lyon, Amsterdam and London are the principal centres of operations. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankThe wars of Louis XIV and Huguenot credit
The first great test of Protestant banking comes during the last wars of Louis XIV. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankThe geography of the network: Paris, Lyon, Amsterdam, London
The network of Protestant banking extends across several centres, each of which fulfils a specific function. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankThe techniques of the trade
The Protestant bankers of the eighteenth century practise a set of trades that would be distinguished today, but which were then combined within the same houses. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankLaw’s System: a lesson in bubbles
In the aftermath of the death of Louis XIV, France is weighed down by debt. The Scotsman John Law proposes a bold reform to the Regent: to create a bank issuing paper money, and then a trading… Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankThe limits of the model
Protestant banking enjoyed remarkable success, but its model had limits that events would reveal. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankLegacies: houses that endure
Several houses that grew out of Protestant banking have survived across the centuries. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankThe life of a banking house in the eighteenth century
A banking house of the eighteenth century is a small organisation. It brings together a few partners, often relatives, a small number of clerks and a few employees responsible for bookkeeping and… Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankThe Refuge and the birth of an international business law
The Huguenot exodus raised complex legal questions, which contributed to the development of a business law oriented towards international affairs. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankGeneva and London: investments in the English funds
Alongside French debt, Geneva’s capitalists invest in British public funds. After the revolution of 1688, England put in place a system of public credit founded on the authority of Parliament, which… Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankThe confidentiality of correspondence and the protection of information
Information constituted the principal asset of the bankers of the eighteenth century, and its protection a constant concern. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankGeneva and Amsterdam: the exchange bank and the bills market
In the seventeenth century and for much of the eighteenth, Amsterdam held first place among the financial centres of Europe. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankChecklist: assessing a network of correspondent banks
Identify the financial centres covered by the network and the function each of them performs in the institution’s operations. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankGenevans in charge of the king’s finances: Thellusson, Necker, Panchaud, Clavière — overview and summary
In the eighteenth century several Genevans held eminent positions in French finance. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankThe French monarchy and its creditors
To understand the role of the Genevan bankers, one must first recall the financial situation of the French monarchy in the eighteenth century. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankIsaac Thellusson, resident of Geneva and banker to the king
Isaac Thellusson, born into a refugee family settled in Geneva, made his career in banking in Paris during the first half of the eighteenth century. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankJacques Necker: from the counting house to the control of the finances
Jacques Necker was born in Geneva in 1732, into a family of German origin settled in the city. He left young for Paris, where he entered banking. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankThe Compte rendu au roi: transparency as a weapon
In 1781 Necker published the Compte rendu au roi [Account rendered to the King], a document presenting the state of the kingdom’s finances. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankIsaac Panchaud and the Caisse d’escompte
Isaac Panchaud, a banker of Vaudois origin, born in London and established in Paris, is a less familiar figure than Necker, but his influence on the financial ideas of his time was considerable. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankÉtienne Clavière: from the Genevan revolution to the Ministry of Finance
Étienne Clavière was born in Geneva in 1735, into a family of merchants of French origin. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankThe Genevans in the financial crisis of the monarchy
The presence of Genevans in key positions in French finance, and the weight of Genevan capital in the royal debt, made Geneva a party to the financial crisis that led to the Revolution. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankLessons for the management of sovereign risk
Geneva’s experience at the end of the eighteenth century offers several lessons for the management of sovereign risk, lessons with which contemporary wealth managers are well acquainted. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankCoppet: finance, ideas and politics
After his retirement, Necker settled at the château de Coppet, on the Vaud shore of Lake Geneva, which he had acquired a few years earlier. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankThe debates on public debt, from Necker to the present day
Necker’s financial policy provoked a debate that continues to this day on the proper way to finance the exceptional expenditure of the state. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankComparative portraits
The four Genevans presented in this chapter followed different trajectories, but taken together their careers illuminate the role of the financial centre in eighteenth-century European finance. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankA Genevan at the United States Treasury: Albert Gallatin
The line of Genevans in the service of a great state’s finances does not end with France. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankThe banker turned minister: conflicts of interest and legitimacy
Necker’s career raises a question that remains topical: that of conflicts of interest between private finance and public office. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankPublic finance and public opinion: a modern debate
Necker’s Compte rendu brought the finances of the state into public debate. In the years that followed, pamphlets, memoirs and articles devoted to the debt, to loans and to taxation multiplied. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankChecklist: analysing an exposure to sovereign risk
Measure the share of the assets exposed to each state, directly or indirectly, through bonds, bank deposits, guarantees and counterparties. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankLife annuities and the “thirty maidens of Geneva” — overview and summary
Among the financial innovations of the eighteenth century, few have captured the imagination as much as the Genevan investments in French life annuities constituted on the lives of carefully selected… Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankWhat is a life annuity?
A life annuity is a contract by which a debtor undertakes to pay a periodic sum for the duration of the life of a specified person, in return for a capital sum received. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankThe life annuity loans of the French monarchy
In the eighteenth century, the French monarchy regularly issued life annuities to finance its deficits. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankThe Genevan idea: choosing the lives
The Genevan capitalists grasped very early the advantage offered by the uniform pricing of French life annuities. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankThe scheme: a life annuity fund before its time
The practical operation of these schemes varied from banker to banker and from period to period, but their general structure can be described as follows. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankA contested innovation
Historians long presented the “thirty maidens of Geneva” as a picturesque anecdote. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankWhy did the monarchy accept this bargain?
It may seem surprising that a state as powerful as France sold life annuities for decades on terms so unfavourable to itself. Several factors explain this situation. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankThe Genevan investors: the scale and fragility of their exposure
Investments in French life annuities came to occupy a considerable place in Genevan fortunes at the end of the eighteenth century. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankThe science of longevity: medicine, mathematics and finance
The Genevan schemes rested on an understanding of mortality that was still empirical. The eighteenth century was a period of decisive progress in this field. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankFrom the thirty maidens to contemporary products
Several contemporary financial instruments rest on the same logic as the Genevan schemes: the assessment and pooling of longevity risk. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankLessons for investors and issuers
The story of the thirty maidens offers several lessons, of interest to investors and to issuers of financial products alike. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankThe practical workings: certificates of life, powers of attorney and disputes
The success of the Genevan schemes rested on rigorous logistics. In order to collect the arrears, the holders had to prove at regular intervals that the lives were still living. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankA European comparison: England and the United Provinces
France was not the only state to sell life annuities. The United Provinces had long resorted to them, and the Grand Pensionary Johan de Witt had presented, as early as the seventeenth century, a… Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankWhat the thirty maidens tell us about the Geneva financial centre
The episode of the thirty maidens sums up several characteristics of the Geneva financial centre. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankTontines: a cousin of the thirty maidens
The tontine, mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, is closely related to the Genevan schemes. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankChecklist: assessing a longevity-linked product
Verify that the pricing rests on current mortality tables suited to the population concerned, and identify the sensitive assumptions. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankThe Republic in crisis: revolutions, annexation and Restoration (1707-1815) — overview and summary
The Genevan eighteenth century was a century of prosperity and of conflict. While the Fabrique exported its watches across Europe and the capitalists placed their funds in Paris and London, the… Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankA contested oligarchy
At the beginning of the eighteenth century, real power belonged to a small number of families that dominated the Petit Conseil (Small Council) and the Conseil des Deux-Cents (Council of Two Hundred). Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankReprésentants and Négatifs
In the middle of the century, Genevan political life came to be organised around two parties. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant Bank1781–1782: revolution and foreign intervention
In the early 1780s the crisis reached its climax. In 1781 the Représentants, allied with the natifs, secured the adoption of an edict granting the latter new rights. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant Bank1789–1794: the Genevan revolution
The French Revolution once again upended the situation in Geneva. The regime imposed in 1782 could not withstand the spread of revolutionary ideas. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankThe finances of the revolutionary Republic
The Genevan revolution had to contend with considerable financial difficulties. State revenues fell as the economy slowed, while expenditure rose, in particular for the relief of the unemployed of… Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant Bank1798: the annexation
At the end of the eighteenth century the Republic of Geneva was an enclave within French territory, France having annexed Savoy and the Pays de Gex. Its independence became untenable. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankFrench Geneva: blockade, conscription and decline
The French period was one of economic decline for Geneva, as the Archives d’État note. Several factors explain this decline. The wars of the Revolution and the Empire disrupted European trade. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankGenevan bankers in Napoleonic France
While Geneva’s economy declined, the bankers of Genevan and Swiss origin established in Paris regained an important position under the Consulate and the Empire. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant Bank1813–1815: the Restoration and entry into the Confederation
The fall of the Napoleonic Empire gave Geneva the opportunity to regain its independence. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankWhat the crisis taught the financial centre
The long Genevan crisis of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries left lessons that the financial centre of the nineteenth century would absorb. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankThe free zones: a tailor-made economic frontier
The free zones created around Geneva at the time of its entry into the Confederation are a remarkable legal innovation. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankFrom city-state to canton: losses and gains
Entry into the Confederation profoundly transformed Geneva’s situation. The city lost some of the attributes of a sovereign state. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankThe Société économique and the management of collective assets
The Société économique, created in 1798 to administer the property of the former Republic, deserves particular attention. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankThe memory of the crises in Genevan identity
The trials of the Republic have left lasting traces in the collective memory. The Escalade of 1602 is commemorated every December with processions, songs and the famous chocolate cauldron. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankEconomic life under the French administration
The French period transformed the daily economic life of the Genevans. The city was integrated into the fiscal and customs system of the Empire. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankThe Genevan elites and the Empire
The Genevan elites adopted a variety of attitudes towards French rule. Some notables collaborated with the imperial administration, held public office and took part in the life of the departmental… Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankConclusion to Part C
Between the seventeenth century and the Restoration, Geneva became a centre of capital. Read more Geneva · The Refuge and the Protestant BankChecklist: assessing the political risk of a jurisdiction for the custody of assets
Examine the stability of the political institutions and the degree to which the population supports the system of government. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingFrom the Restoration to the radical revolution (1814-1848): the rebirth of Geneva banking — overview and summary
When Geneva joined the Confederation in 1815, its economic situation was difficult. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingGeneva in 1815: a city to be rebuilt
The canton of Geneva that came into being in 1815 differed markedly from the old Republic. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingThe founding houses
Several of today’s great Genevan private banking houses were founded in the period surrounding the French annexation and the Restoration. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingThe business: commission, management and international investments
The Genevan houses of the first half of the nineteenth century carried on lines of business inherited from the previous century. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingTrust between families: alliances and networks
Genevan banking under the Restoration remained a family affair. The partners of the banking houses belonged to a narrow circle of families from the old patriciate and the prosperous bourgeoisie,… Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingThe Caisse d’épargne and the spread of savings
The Restoration saw the birth in Geneva of an institution intended for a clientele quite different from that of the private bankers: the savings bank. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingGeneva as a capital market under the Restoration
In the decades following 1815, Geneva regained its role as a market for capital. The Genevan families rebuilt their fortunes through trade, watchmaking, investments and inheritances. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingThe revolutions of 1841 and 1846
From the 1830s onwards, the conservative regime of the Restoration met with growing opposition. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingJames Fazy and the critique of the “financial aristocracy”
James Fazy developed a virulent critique of what he called the Genevan financial aristocracy. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingWhat 1848 changed for banking
The Federal Constitution of 1848 transformed the economic framework within which Genevan bankers operated. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingGenevan science and the spirit of measurement
The Geneva of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries ranked among the most active scientific centres in Europe. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingForeigners in Geneva under the Restoration
The Restoration made Geneva and its surroundings a favoured destination for foreign travellers. The English, in particular, discovered Lake Geneva and the Alps in the wake of Romanticism. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingThe economic education of the elites
Future Genevan bankers received an education that combined general instruction with practical apprenticeship. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingA banking house around 1830: an attempt at reconstruction
The archives of the Geneva banking houses make it possible to picture, in broad outline, how such a house operated around 1830. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingGeneva and the credit of Restoration France
After 1815, France had to pay the allied powers a considerable war indemnity and to maintain occupying troops. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingGeneva capital and industrialisation
The first half of the nineteenth century saw the rise of industrialisation in Switzerland. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingWomen and the management of family wealth
Nineteenth-century Geneva wealth management served a clientele that included women, even though their legal capacity remained limited. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingChecklist: assessing the soundness of a family bank
Examine the ownership structure and the rules for transfer between generations, in particular the conditions for admitting new partners. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingRadicalism, railways and joint-stock banks (1846-1914) — overview and summary
The second half of the nineteenth century profoundly transformed the Geneva financial centre. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingJames Fazy’s programme: credit, city and openness
Having come to power in 1846, James Fazy implemented a programme of modernisation aimed at making Geneva an open, prosperous and modern city. The first undertaking was urban. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingJoint-stock banks and competition with the private bankers
The middle of the nineteenth century saw the appearance in Europe of a new type of institution: the joint-stock bank, which pools the capital of many shareholders and can mobilise resources far… Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingThe Geneva Stock Exchange
In the middle of the nineteenth century, securities transactions grew in Geneva, driven by the rise of joint-stock companies and public loans. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingThe railways: capital, speculation and politics
The rise of the railways was the great economic event of the mid-nineteenth century. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingGeneva and international high finance
In the second half of the nineteenth century, Geneva’s bankers took part in the great operations of international finance. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingThe monetary question: from the Swiss franc to the National Bank
The Constitution of 1848 gave the Confederation the right to coin money. The Federal Coinage Act of 1850 introduced the Swiss franc, modelled on the French franc, which facilitated exchanges with… Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingThe Belle Époque of wealth management
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Geneva became a favoured place of sojourn and residence for the European elites. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingThe crises of the late nineteenth century and the winnowing of the houses
The second half of the nineteenth century was punctuated by financial crises that affected the Geneva financial centre. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingGeneva on the eve of the Great War
On the eve of the First World War, the Geneva financial centre presented a contrasting picture. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingThe new town and property finance
The demolition of the fortifications, from the middle of the nineteenth century onwards, freed up considerable land around the old town. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingThe telegraph, information and the speed of the markets
The introduction of the electric telegraph in the middle of the nineteenth century transformed finance. In Switzerland a telegraph network was set up from the early 1850s. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingGeneva, the Red Cross and the Alabama arbitration
The second half of the nineteenth century saw Geneva affirm an international vocation that would have a lasting influence on the image of its financial centre. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingTourism, hotels and financial services
The second half of the nineteenth century made Geneva a stopping point on the international tourist circuit. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingThe beginnings of organised philanthropy
The Geneva tradition of mutual aid, born in the time of the Reformation, was transformed in the nineteenth century into organised philanthropy. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingThe financial press and investor information
The rise of joint-stock companies and of the stock exchange was accompanied by the development of the financial press. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingChecklist: assessing the governance of a growing bank
Verify that the growth strategy rests on a realistic analysis of the risks and of the resources available. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingPrivate bankers: a status, a liability, a culture — overview and summary
The expression “private banker” has a precise meaning in Switzerland which international usage has blurred. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingWhat is a private banker?
The private banker, in the traditional Swiss sense, is a banking institution organised as a general partnership or a limited partnership, whose partners with unlimited liability answer for the bank’s… Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingThe legal forms: general partnership and limited partnership
Swiss law offers private bankers two forms of partnership. The general partnership brings together natural persons who jointly operate a commercial enterprise under a business name and whose… Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingUnlimited liability as a signal of trust
Why would bankers agree to answer with their personal assets for the debts of their bank? The question deserves to be asked, because the limited liability of companies limited by shares is generally… Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingThe partners: selection, co-option and succession
The life of a private bank rests on its partners. Their selection is a major strategic decision that commits the future of the house. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingThe collective institutions of the private bankers
The Geneva private bankers organised themselves collectively from the end of the nineteenth century. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingCulture and practices: discretion, sobriety, the long term
The status of private banker goes hand in hand with a professional culture that the Geneva houses have cultivated for generations. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingThe business model of private banking in the twentieth century
In the twentieth century, the business model of Geneva’s private bankers rests on several sources of revenue. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingThe transformation of 2014
In the early 2010s, the great Geneva houses decided to transform their legal structure. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingWhat remains of the model
Since 2014, private bankers in the strict sense have become rare in Switzerland. A recent source indicates that only a handful remain, among them certain Geneva houses. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingThe private banker in the imagination of the financial centre
The Geneva private banker occupies a singular place in the collective imagination. In the eyes of the public and of the clientele, he embodies continuity, discretion and solidity. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingDeath, withdrawal and succession of a partner
The life of a partnership is intimately bound up with that of its partners. The death, incapacity or withdrawal of a partner with unlimited liability raises legal and practical questions that private… Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingThe partnerships of London and New York: a comparison
The model of the bank organised as a partnership is not peculiar to Switzerland. In London, the great houses of the City were for a long time partnerships, whose partners were personally answerable… Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingThe private bankers in the life of the Geneva financial centre
In the twentieth century, the private bankers occupy an eminent place in the life of the Geneva financial centre that goes beyond their economic weight. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingThe private banker and his foreign clientele
The clientele of Geneva’s private bankers became international over the course of the twentieth century. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingThe accountability of executives: a contemporary reading
The tradition of personal liability among private bankers finds an echo in the recent debates on the accountability of bank executives. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingThe geography of Geneva’s bankers
Geneva’s banking houses were long concentrated in a few streets of the city, between the old town, the Rues Basses and the districts built after the demolition of the fortifications. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingChecklist: assessing a house organised as a partnership or run by partners
Identify the partners with unlimited liability, the exact legal structure of the group and the allocation of responsibilities between the holding entity and the operating entities. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingWar, crises and the Banking Act (1914-1934) — overview and summary
Between the outbreak of the First World War and the adoption of the Federal Act on Banks, the Swiss financial centre lived through two decades of upheaval. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingThe First World War: neutrality and the inflow of capital
Switzerland remained neutral during the First World War. That neutrality did not shield it from hardship: supplying the country became difficult, social tensions grew and culminated in the general… Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingThe 1920s: Switzerland as a refuge for European capital
The post-war years were a period of monetary disorder in Europe. Germany and Austria experienced hyperinflation that destroyed the savings of millions of people. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingThe affair of the Banque commerciale de Bâle
In the early 1930s, the tax tensions between France and Switzerland burst into the open on the occasion of a resounding scandal. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingThe crisis of 1931 and the reorganisation of the banking sector
The world economic crisis, triggered by the Wall Street crash of October 1929, reached Europe in 1931. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingThe genesis of the law: from 1933 to 1934
The draft Federal Banking Act was launched at the beginning of 1933. According to a study of the history of Swiss banking regulation, the deliberations lasted twenty months, from February 1933 to… Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingArticle 47: the criminal-law protection of secrecy
Article 47 of the law of 1934 punishes breaches of professional secrecy by persons who have access to banking information. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingA conciliatory and lightly restrictive law
The study of the history of Swiss banking regulation characterises the law of 8 November 1934 as a “conciliatory and lightly restrictive law”. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingThe myth of protecting the persecuted
A widespread interpretation presents the bank client secrecy of 1934 as a measure intended to protect the victims of Nazi persecution, in particular German Jews seeking to place their assets in… Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingBank client secrecy in current law
Article 47 of the Banking Act still exists, in revised form. The Wikipedia article on bank client secrecy states that it now provides for a custodial sentence of up to three years for an intentional… Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingThe Federal Banking Commission: birth of an authority
The law of 1934 created the Federal Banking Commission, the first federal authority charged with supervising the banking sector. Its resources were initially modest. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingExchange controls and the standstill agreements
The crisis of 1931 had another important consequence for the Swiss banks: the introduction of exchange controls in several countries, Germany in particular. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingThe League of Nations and the international tax question
The establishment of the League of Nations in Geneva in the aftermath of the First World War had an unexpected consequence for the financial centre: the city became the place where the first… Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingThree types of institution in the face of the crisis
The crisis of the 1930s struck the institutions of the Geneva financial centre differently according to their business model. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingThe legacy of 1934 in today’s supervision
The law of 1934 has been revised many times, but it still forms the foundation of Swiss banking supervision. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingThe law of 1934 seen from Geneva
For the Geneva private bankers, the law of 1934 had two faces. It imposed new supervision, auditing requirements and publication rules, which altered the habits of houses attached to their… Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingChecklist: observing bank client secrecy in practice
Identify precisely the information covered by secrecy and the persons who have access to it, and restrict that access to what is strictly necessary. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingThe Second World War and dormant assets: a contested memory — overview and summary
The Second World War occupies a special place in the history of the Swiss financial centre. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingSwitzerland between 1939 and 1945: neutrality and encirclement
When war broke out in September 1939, Switzerland proclaimed its neutrality and mobilised its army. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingThe financial centre during the war
Swiss banks carried on their business during the war in a profoundly disrupted environment. Relations with clients in the occupied countries became difficult, if not impossible. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingRefugees and asylum policy
Swiss policy towards refugees during the war is one of the most painful aspects of the period. The Bergier Commission devoted one of its principal studies to the subject. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingThe post-war period: the Washington Agreement
In the aftermath of the war, the Allies demanded that Switzerland return the looted gold it had bought from the Reichsbank and liquidate the German assets held on its territory. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingDormant assets: from oblivion to crisis
For several decades after the war, the question of the assets deposited in Switzerland by victims of Nazism remained unresolved. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingThe global settlement of 1998
On 12 August 1998 the big Swiss banks and the Jewish organisations reached a global settlement under which the banks undertook to pay USD 1.25 billion, at the time CHF 1.87 billion. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingThe Bergier Commission
The Independent Commission of Experts Switzerland – Second World War was established by a Federal Decree of 13 December 1996. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingWhat the financial centre learned from it
The dormant assets affair and the work of the Bergier Commission left a deep mark on the Swiss and Geneva financial centres. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingGeneva, the ICRC and the limits of humanitarian action
During the war Geneva was home to the International Committee of the Red Cross, whose activity expanded enormously. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingThe art trade and looted property
Among the subjects studied by the Bergier Commission is the trade in art and jewellery. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingThe legal questions raised by old assets
Claims relating to dormant assets raised complex legal questions that remain relevant to other historical disputes. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingThe memory of the war in the culture of the financial centre
The dormant assets affair and the Bergier Report brought about a profound change in the way the Swiss financial centre regards its history. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingBank archives and historical research today
The dormant assets affair opened a new period in relations between banks and historians. Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingGeneva, city of refuge: an identity put to the test
Geneva has long thought of itself as a city of refuge. Parts B and C showed the importance of the reception of Protestant refugees in its history, and the city today houses the headquarters of… Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingConclusion to Part D
Between 1815 and 1945 the Geneva financial centre took on its modern form. The houses founded in 1796, 1805 and 1819 became the pillars of a private banking sector specialising in wealth management,… Read more Geneva · The birth of modern Geneva private bankingChecklist: managing contactless assets and historical risk
Put in place procedures to identify relationships whose holders no longer make contact and document the steps taken to trace them. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingThe golden age of wealth management (1945-1990) — overview and summary
Between the end of the Second World War and the early 1990s, wealth management in Geneva grew considerably. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingSwiss stability in an unstable world
The post-war monetary order, founded on the Bretton Woods agreements, organised a system of fixed exchange rates around the dollar, which was itself convertible into gold. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingCapital flows into Geneva
The capital that flowed into Geneva during this period came from a variety of sources. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingThe arrival of foreign banks and new houses
The inflow of capital drew many foreign banks to Geneva. French banks opened subsidiaries there to serve their private clients. American, British, Italian and German banks set up offices. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingBanking secrecy under strain: the first pressures
During this period, banking secrecy was a major commercial argument for the financial centre. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private banking1977: the Chiasso scandal and the Due Diligence Agreement
In the spring of 1977 a scandal broke that marked a turning point in the history of the Swiss financial centre. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingThe 1980s: scandals and debates
The Due Diligence Agreement did not prevent new scandals from arising. During the 1980s, several affairs implicated the Swiss financial centre: the use of Swiss accounts by drug-trafficking networks,… Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private banking1990: the criminalisation of money laundering
The preparatory work on criminal provisions against money laundering was launched in 1986. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingThe rise of independent asset managers and wealth-holding structures
The golden age also saw the rise of independent asset managers. Bank employees, often experienced, left their institutions to set up their own management companies, taking part of their clientele… Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingTaking stock of the golden age
The golden age of wealth management made Geneva one of the world’s leading financial centres for private clients. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingGeneva and petroleum capital
The oil shocks of the 1970s transformed the geography of global wealth. The oil-exporting countries, in particular those of the Gulf, accumulated considerable surpluses, which their governments,… Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingThe assets of deposed leaders
The golden age of wealth management was also the period in which Switzerland first found itself confronted with the assets of deposed foreign leaders. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingThe Geneva financial centre under critical scrutiny
The golden age of wealth management provoked vigorous criticism, within Switzerland itself. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingLatin American clients and the debt crises
Latin America supplied the Geneva financial centre with an important clientele during the golden age. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingThe technology of wealth management before the Internet
Wealth management in the golden age relied on technologies that appear rudimentary today. Orders were transmitted by telephone and by telex. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingLawyers, fiduciaries and intermediaries during the golden age
Geneva’s lawyers and fiduciaries played an important part in the wealth management of the golden age. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingChecklist: assessing the legacy of a long-standing clientele
Identify the business relationships opened before the current obligations came into force and verify that their documentation has been brought up to date. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingThe metamorphosis of the houses and the cosmopolitan financial centre (1990-2026) — overview and summary
Since the beginning of the 1990s, the Geneva financial centre has undergone a profound transformation. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingA sector in transformation
At the turn of the 1990s, several underlying developments transformed wealth management. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingThe great houses become international groups
The Geneva houses founded in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries have grown considerably. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingThe consolidation of the financial centre
Over the past decade, the Geneva financial centre has undergone a marked consolidation. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingThe Geneva financial centre in the Swiss landscape
The Geneva financial centre occupies a particular position in the Swiss financial landscape. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingForeign banks: a cosmopolitan landscape
Foreign banks occupy a considerable place in Geneva. The large French groups have established wealth management subsidiaries there, one of which, Crédit Agricole (Suisse), is among the institutions… Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingData leaks and the reputation of the financial centre
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the Geneva financial centre was hit by several cases of leaked banking data, which publicly exposed tax evasion practices and damaged its reputation. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingThe disappearance of Credit Suisse
In March 2023, Credit Suisse, the country’s second-largest bank, founded in the nineteenth century, was taken over by UBS in a transaction orchestrated by the federal authorities, following a crisis… Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingThe challenges facing the financial centre
Every year since 2002, the Fondation Genève Place Financière has published an economic survey of the institutions of the financial centre. Its recent findings bring several challenges to light. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingThe Geneva houses and technology
Digital transformation is one of the major undertakings facing the Geneva institutions. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingInstitutional asset management and funds: a decisive diversification
The development of asset management for institutional clients has been a decisive diversification for the great Geneva houses. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingThe next generation and talent
The Geneva financial centre depends on its ability to attract and retain talent. Institutions are looking for experienced managers capable of serving a demanding international clientele, investment… Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingGeneva and Zurich: complementarity and rivalry
The financial centres of Geneva and Zurich maintain a relationship made up of both complementarity and rivalry. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingFamily governance and independence
The great Geneva houses assert their independence, that is to say their control by the partners, without a dominant outside shareholder. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingThe financial centre in figures
The data published by the Fondation Genève Place Financière make it possible to measure the weight of the financial sector within the Geneva economy. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingThe foreign houses that withdrew
The withdrawal of several foreign groups from Swiss wealth management illustrates how fragile a presence can be when it is decided from a distance. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingA financial centre that tells its own story: communication and image
Geneva private banking long cultivated silence. The houses did not advertise, published little and relied on word of mouth among their clients. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingChecklist: assessing the strategic soundness of a wealth management institution
Analyse the size of the institution in relation to the fixed compliance and technology costs it has to bear. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingThe end of bank client secrecy vis-à-vis foreign tax authorities (2008-2018) — overview and summary
Within a single decade, between 2008 and 2018, Swiss banking secrecy lost most of its effect towards foreign tax authorities. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingBefore 2008: a secrecy already eroded
Banking secrecy was not inviolable before 2008. The preceding chapters have shown that it already gave way in criminal proceedings, in international mutual assistance and in the fight against money… Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingThe UBS affair
The affair that set off the end of banking secrecy began with the revelations of a former UBS manager, Bradley Birkenfeld. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private banking2009: the adoption of the OECD standard
The financial crisis of 2008 increased the international pressure on financial centres that sheltered undeclared assets. Governments, faced with considerable deficits, sought to recover tax revenue. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingSwiss banks in the American crosshairs
After the agreement concerning UBS, the American justice authorities extended their investigations to other Swiss banks. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingThe Geneva banks and the American programme
Several Geneva institutions concluded agreements with the Department of Justice. On 31 December 2015, Lombard Odier signed a non-prosecution agreement providing for the payment of USD 99.8 million. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingFATCA
Alongside the prosecutions, the United States adopted in 2010 a statute, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, which requires foreign financial institutions to report to the American tax… Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingThe automatic exchange of information
FATCA served as the model for a multilateral standard. The OECD, supported by the G20, developed a common reporting standard, which provides for the automatic exchange of information on financial… Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingConsequences for the Geneva financial centre
The end of banking secrecy towards foreign tax authorities profoundly transformed the Geneva financial centre. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingGroup requests and administrative assistance
The adoption of the OECD standard opened the way to requests for administrative assistance that became ever more numerous and ever broader. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingRegularisations and voluntary disclosures
The end of banking secrecy led tens of thousands of foreign taxpayers to regularise their position. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingEmployees caught in the storm
The banking secrecy crisis had heavy personal consequences for many employees of Swiss banks. Relationship managers were indicted in the United States, and some were arrested while travelling abroad. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingThe European Union and automatic exchange
With the European Union, Switzerland had initially favoured a withholding-tax model, which preserved the anonymity of clients while contributing to the tax revenues of their states. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingWhat remains of bank client secrecy
Bank client secrecy has not disappeared. It continues to protect clients against third parties, the public and competitors, and its breach remains a criminal offence. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingThe role of whistleblowers and stolen data
The crisis of banking secrecy was fuelled by individuals who passed internal bank information to foreign authorities. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingChecklist: regularising a relationship inherited from the era of banking secrecy
Verify the tax compliance of the client’s assets in every country in which the client is or has been a taxpayer, and document the evidence obtained. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingThe regulatory framework of wealth management — overview and summary
Wealth management as practised in Geneva today operates within a dense regulatory framework, thoroughly renewed since the beginning of the twenty-first century. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingThe architecture of Swiss financial market law
Swiss financial market law rests on several complementary acts. The Banking Act governs the authorisation and supervision of banks. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingThe Banking Act today
The Banking Act makes subject to authorisation by FINMA the activity of institutions which accept deposits from the public on a professional basis or which refinance themselves with several banks in… Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingThe Financial Institutions Act
The Financial Institutions Act and the Financial Services Act, together with their implementing ordinances, entered into force on 1 January 2020. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingThe Financial Services Act
The Financial Services Act, which entered into force at the same time as the Financial Institutions Act, lays down the rules that providers must observe towards their clients. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingCombating money laundering
The Federal Anti-Money Laundering Act imposes due diligence obligations on financial intermediaries: verification of the identity of the contracting party, identification of the beneficial owner,… Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingThe transparency register
The Federal Act on the Transparency of Legal Entities and the Identification of Beneficial Owners introduces new obligations for legal entities and creates a central federal register of beneficial… Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingFINMA and enforcement of the law
FINMA has extensive powers to enforce financial market law. It may order the restoration of compliance with the law, confiscate profits made in breach of the law, prohibit individuals from holding a… Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingWhat this framework means for Geneva
The current regulatory framework has transformed the Geneva financial centre. It has raised the level of professional requirements and strengthened client protection. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingTrustees and wealth structures
The Financial Institutions Act subjects professional trustees to an authorisation requirement, in the same way as asset managers. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingSanctions, data protection and outsourcing
The regulatory framework for wealth management also includes international sanctions. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingThe role of audit firms and supervisory organisations
The Swiss supervisory system relies to a large extent on audit firms, which carry out prudential audits on behalf of FINMA, and, for asset managers and trustees, on supervisory organisations. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingMediation and disputes with clients
Disputes between institutions and their clients form an aspect of the regulatory framework that is often neglected. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingA regulatory calendar for practitioners
The density of recent reforms requires Geneva practitioners to follow a tight calendar. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingChecklist: verifying the regulatory status of a wealth management provider
Determine the nature of the activity carried on and the applicable law: bank, asset manager, trustee, manager of collective assets, securities firm, adviser. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingTaxation and estate planning — overview and summary
Taxation is one of the decisive factors in the attractiveness of a wealth management centre, and one of the most debated. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingA three-tier system
The Swiss tax system rests on three tiers: the Confederation, the cantons and the communes. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingLump-sum taxation based on expenditure
Lump-sum taxation based on expenditure, often called the tax forfait, allows persons of foreign nationality who settle in Switzerland without pursuing gainful activity there to be taxed on the basis… Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingCorporate taxation since 2020
The corporate tax reform profoundly changed the environment for companies established in Geneva, including trading companies and investment structures. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingInheritance and gift taxation in Geneva
The canton of Geneva levies inheritance and gift taxes, whose rates depend on the family relationship between the deceased or the donor and the beneficiary. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingThe instruments of wealth planning
Wealth planning aims to organise the holding, management and transfer of assets, taking into account the family’s objectives, the applicable civil and tax rules and the risks involved. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingInternational successions
Because Geneva’s clientele is international, so are its successions. A client may be a foreign national, reside in Geneva, own assets in several countries and have heirs settled on several… Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingLeaving and arriving: mobility and taxation
The international mobility of wealthy individuals makes taxation a factor in the choice of place of residence. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingTaxation as an argument for the financial centre
The taxation of individuals is the foremost concern of Geneva institutions, according to the surveys of the Fondation Genève Place Financière. This concern stems from several factors. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingThe tax shield and wealth tax in Geneva
Geneva’s wealth tax is among the highest in Switzerland and, combined with income tax, can absorb a very large share of the income of a wealthy taxpayer whose assets yield little return. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingPhilanthropy and taxation
Taxation encourages philanthropy. Donations to institutions exempt from tax on account of their public-service or charitable purpose are deductible from taxable income, within certain limits, for… Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingCrypto assets and digital assets: tax treatment
Geneva wealth management is opening up to crypto assets and digital assets, the regulatory framework of which Part K will describe. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingWithholding tax at source and cross-border workers
Geneva’s tax system has a peculiarity linked to the canton’s geography: a significant proportion of the people who work there reside in France. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingSwiss withholding tax and double taxation treaties
Swiss withholding tax, a 35 per cent deduction levied at source on dividends, interest on Swiss bonds and bank deposits, lottery winnings and certain insurance benefits, is a safeguarding instrument:… Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingTrusts and foundations: the taxation of foreign instruments
The trust, which this chapter has presented as a planning instrument, poses Swiss tax law a question that it has resolved through administrative practice. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingChecklist: preparing a wealthy client’s establishment in Geneva
Determine the tax regime that may be available – ordinary taxation or expenditure-based (lump-sum) taxation – and verify the applicable conditions and minimum amounts. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingThe business model of wealth management and consolidation — overview and summary
How does a wealth management bank earn its living, and why is the Geneva sector consolidating? This chapter answers both questions by describing the sources of revenue, the cost structure, the… Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingSources of revenue
A wealth management bank draws its revenue from several sources, whose relative importance depends on its model. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingThe cost structure
The costs of a wealth management bank are dominated by staff. Relationship managers, investment specialists, compliance and risk functions, lawyers and IT specialists account for the bulk of… Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingPerformance indicators
Analysts and executives follow several indicators to assess a wealth management bank. Assets under management measure the size of the business. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingPressure on margins
Wealth management margins have been under continuous pressure for two decades, which largely explains the consolidation of the sector. Several factors contribute to this. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingThe logic of consolidation
The consolidation of the Geneva sector follows a simple economic logic: the fixed costs of compliance, technology and governance impose a minimum size, below which an institution can no longer… Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingConsolidation in figures: the annual KPMG study
The trends described in the preceding sections can be read in the figures of the study that KPMG devotes each year to Swiss private banks. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingThe possible strategies
Faced with this pressure, Geneva institutions have adopted different strategies, which can be grouped into a few models. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingWhat still draws clients to Geneva
If the protection against foreign tax authorities has disappeared, what still leads clients from around the world to entrust their assets to Geneva? Several factors, which the institutions put… Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingOutlook
The business model of Geneva wealth management will continue to evolve under the effect of several forces. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingThe price of talent
Relationship managers are the most valuable and the most mobile asset of wealth management institutions. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingMergers and acquisitions: how to value a wealth management bank
Combination transactions require the institutions concerned to be valued. A common method consists in expressing the price as a percentage of assets under management, with multiples that vary… Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingIntegration after the acquisition
The integration of an acquired institution is a delicate phase, during which part of the value can be lost. Clients must be informed, reassured and sometimes persuaded to stay. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingThe triangular relationship: client, independent manager, custodian bank
A significant part of Geneva wealth management rests on a three-way relationship: the client, the independent wealth manager who advises him and manages his portfolio, and the custodian bank that… Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingThe Geneva financial centre in international comparison
The profitability of Swiss wealth management institutions is regularly compared with that of their foreign competitors. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingA typical case: a medium-sized bank facing the choice
To illustrate the issues described in this chapter, let us consider a fictitious Geneva bank of intermediate size, which manages CHF 8 billion for a European and Middle Eastern private client base,… Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingRetail banking and the cantonal bank in the Geneva model
The business model of the financial centre cannot be reduced to international wealth management. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingThe revenues of the financial centre and the Geneva economy
The profitability of the institutions translates, for the Geneva economy, into jobs, salaries, taxes and spending. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingChecklist: analysing the profitability of a wealth management institution
Break down revenues by source and measure their sensitivity to markets, interest rates and pricing. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingIndependent wealth managers, family offices and the ecosystem — overview and summary
Geneva wealth management is not confined to the banks. Around them revolve hundreds of independent wealth managers, family offices serving one or several families, trustees, lawyers, fiduciaries,… Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingIndependent wealth managers: origin and model
The independent wealth manager, often referred to by the French acronym GFI (gestionnaire de fortune indépendant), manages his clients’ assets on the basis of a mandate, without holding them himself:… Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingThe regulatory transformation of independent managers
Until 2019, independent managers escaped all prudential supervision. They only had to comply with the Anti-Money Laundering Act, by affiliating with a self-regulatory organisation. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingFamily offices
A family office is an organisation dedicated to managing the affairs of a wealthy family. A single family office serves one family only; Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingFamily governance and succession
Family governance is one of the most valuable contributions of the family office, and one of the fields in which the Geneva tradition of stewardship, described in Part B, finds a contemporary… Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingThe other members of the ecosystem
Around the banks, the asset managers and the family offices, the Geneva financial centre brings together many other actors whose cooperation gives the whole its value. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingInterdependence and its risks
The members of this ecosystem are interdependent. The custodian banks depend on asset managers and family offices for part of their assets. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingThe independent asset manager’s daily work
The daily work of a licensed independent asset manager is organised around a few central obligations, which regulation has formalised. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingPlatforms and pooling of resources
The rise of service platforms for independent asset managers is one of the most significant responses to the regulatory transformation. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingSuccession at the independent asset manager
The dependence of independent asset management firms on their founders is their principal weakness. Many Geneva managers who founded their firms in the 1980s or 1990s are approaching retirement. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingFamily offices and direct investments
Family offices differ from independent asset managers in the scale of their direct investments. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingGeneva, Zurich and Lugano: the geography of independent asset managers
Independent asset managers are present in all the Swiss financial centres, with differing characteristics. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingThree ages of the independent asset manager
The history of the Geneva independent asset manager can be read in three ages. The first, from the 1970s to the end of the 1990s, is the age of freedom: the manager practised without licence or… Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingServices to the clients of the ecosystem: an integrated offering
One of the strengths of the Geneva financial centre lies in the ability of its actors to work together in serving complex situations. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingThe supervisory organisations: a new link in the chain
The supervisory organisations created by the Financial Institutions Act are a new link in the chain of the ecosystem. Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingConclusion to Part E: a transformed financial centre
Part E has traced the transformation of Geneva private banking since 1945. The golden age of wealth management, founded on Swiss stability, on the quality of services and, in part, on the protection… Read more Geneva · Contemporary Geneva private bankingChecklist: choosing an independent asset manager or a family office
Verify the FINMA licence and the affiliation with a supervisory organisation, or, for a single family office, the legal analysis justifying the absence of a licence. Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeFrom the Red Cross to the League of Nations: the building of a vocation — overview and summary
Nothing predestined Geneva to become a centre of international cooperation. In the middle of the nineteenth century the city was a medium-sized town in a small neutral country, with neither political… Read more Geneva · International Geneva and finance1863: five Genevans and an idea
The story begins with a book. In 1862 Henry Dunant, a Geneva businessman who had witnessed the aftermath of the battle of Solferino in 1859, published a work in which he described the sufferings of… Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeSwiss neutrality and Geneva’s vocation
Switzerland’s neutrality, recognised by the powers in 1815, as Part C recalled, is the first condition of Geneva’s international vocation. Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeThe Alabama arbitration and international justice
The Alabama arbitration, held in Geneva in 1872, contributed decisively to the city’s international reputation. Read more Geneva · International Geneva and finance1919-1920: the League of Nations chooses Geneva
The First World War overturned the international order. The Treaty of Versailles, signed in 1919, contained the Covenant of the League of Nations, the first international organisation with a… Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeGeneva between the wars: capital of an ideal
Between the wars, Geneva embodied the hope of an international order founded on law and cooperation. Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeThe failure of the League of Nations and the war
The League of Nations did not succeed in halting the march to war. The absence of the United States from the outset, then the withdrawal of Japan, Germany and Italy, its powerlessness in the face of… Read more Geneva · International Geneva and finance1945-1960: the return of the institutions
The creation of the United Nations in 1945 raised the question of a seat once again. Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeWhat the international vocation brought to the financial centre
The building of International Geneva changed the financial centre in several ways. Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeGustave Moynier and the legal construction of humanitarian action
If Henry Dunant gave the impulse, Gustave Moynier built the institution. A lawyer by training and president of the Société genevoise d’utilité publique (Geneva Public Welfare Society), Moynier… Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeWilliam Rappard and the Swiss diplomacy of hospitality
The establishment of the League of Nations in Geneva owes much to William Rappard, a Geneva professor, economist and diplomat, who pleaded Geneva’s cause before the Paris Peace Conference and… Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeThe ICRC, a Geneva institution with a universal vocation
The International Committee of the Red Cross is a legal and institutional singularity. Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeGeneva and science: CERN and research
International Geneva also has a scientific dimension, of which CERN is the most visible expression. Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeChronology of a vocation
The building of International Geneva spans a century and a half. The following table summarises its principal stages. Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeInternational Geneva and the Genevans
The arrival of the international organisations transformed the relationship of the Genevans to their city. Read more Geneva · International Geneva and finance“Geneva” as a brand: conventions, accords and summits
In the twentieth century the name of Geneva became a brand of international law and diplomacy. Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeThe Genevans of International Geneva: an elite and its networks
International Geneva is a matter of institutions and, just as much, a matter of people: the families that founded the Red Cross belonged to the same milieu as those that ran the banks. Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeChecklist: assessing the reputational capital of a financial centre
Identify the institutions, events and traditions that contribute to the image of the financial centre, and measure how they are perceived by the target clientele. Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeInternational Geneva today: organisations, economic weight and turbulence — overview and summary
The International Geneva of the twenty-first century is a dense and diversified whole: international organisations, non-governmental organisations, permanent missions, research centres, multinational… Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeThe institutional landscape
According to the Permanent Mission of Switzerland to the United Nations Office, the canton of Geneva hosts forty international organisations, out of forty-eight established in Switzerland, several… Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeThe economic weight
The cantonal statistical office regularly measures the economic weight of International Geneva. Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeGeneva, capital of health, labour, refugees and trade
International Geneva has specialised in several fields of global governance, each of which concerns the financial centre in its own way. Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeThe turbulence since 2025
Since 2025 International Geneva has been passing through a period of turbulence without precedent since the end of the Cold War. Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeThe host State policy
Switzerland, together with the canton and the city of Geneva, pursues a host State policy intended to maintain and develop International Geneva. Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeCompetition between host cities
Geneva has no monopoly on hosting international organisations. New York, Vienna, Nairobi, Bonn, Paris, The Hague, Rome, Copenhagen and other cities house headquarters and offices of the United… Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeConsequences for the financial centre
International Geneva and the financial centre maintain relationships that the statistics measure only in part. Three dimensions deserve to be emphasised. Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeNon-governmental organisations: a sector in their own right
In Geneva the non-governmental organisations form a sector in their own right. The cantonal statistical office counted 461 of them in 2023, employing 3,276 people. Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeInternational staff and the Geneva economy
International officials, diplomats and the staff of non-governmental organisations form a population whose characteristics influence the Geneva economy. Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeConferences and the hospitality economy
International Geneva is also a city of conferences. According to the Permanent Mission of Switzerland to the United Nations Office, the conferences held in Geneva, in person, by teleconference or in… Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeThree scenarios for International Geneva
The turbulence that began in 2025 invites us to consider several scenarios for the future of International Geneva, each of which carries consequences for the financial centre. Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeInternational organisations as bank clients
International organisations maintain specific business relationships with Geneva’s banks. Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeThe property estate of International Geneva
Hosting international organisations is also a matter of buildings. In 1964 the Confederation and the canton created a foundation, the Fondation des immeubles pour les organisations internationales… Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeChecklist: serving the clientele of International Geneva
Know the status of international civil servants and diplomats, in particular their tax privileges and immunities, and the consequences these have for banking relationships. Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeEconomic diplomacy and dispute resolution: Geneva as a centre of law — overview and summary
Geneva’s vocation as a place where disputes are settled through law dates back to the Alabama arbitration of 1872. Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeMultilateral economic diplomacy
Geneva is the seat of the World Trade Organization, where the rules of international trade are negotiated and trade disputes between states are settled. Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeSwiss international arbitration law
International commercial arbitration is one of the fields in which Switzerland, and Geneva in particular, holds a leading position. That position rests first of all on the law. Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeThe institutions: the Swiss Arbitration Centre and the others
Arbitration in Switzerland relies on institutions that administer the proceedings. Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeArbitration in commodity trading and finance
Arbitration occupies a particular place in commodity trading, which Parts G and H will describe. Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeInvestment arbitration
Arbitration between investors and states, based on bilateral investment treaties and on multilateral conventions, is another field in which Geneva plays a role. Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeThe courts and international litigation in Geneva
The Geneva courts handle a substantial volume of international commercial and financial litigation, concerning banking relationships, trading contracts, companies, international successions and the… Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeWhat the centre of law brings to the financial centre
Geneva as a centre of law brings several essential elements to Geneva as a financial centre. Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeArbitration in Geneva: a history
Geneva’s tradition of arbitration goes back, beyond the Alabama, to the merchant justice of the medieval fairs, described in Part A, and to the arbitrations to which the dispersed Huguenot merchants… Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeContemporary challenges in arbitration
International arbitration faces several challenges that directly concern Geneva. Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeInternational mediation and good offices
Beyond arbitration, Geneva hosts numerous international negotiations and mediations. Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeGeneva and international business law
Geneva’s position as a legal centre also rests on the contribution of its institutions and its lawyers to the development of international business law. Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeBanking litigation before the Geneva courts
Alongside arbitration, the Geneva courts handle a substantial volume of banking and financial litigation, the nature of which has changed with the financial centre itself. Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeInterim measures, attachments and enforcement
A legal centre is also judged by the effectiveness of its emergency measures. Geneva, where assets from all over the world are deposited, is a favoured venue for attachment (séquestre), a protective… Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeDisputes arising from sanctions and asset freezes
International sanctions, examined in Part H, have generated a new type of litigation before the Geneva and federal courts and authorities. Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeTraining arbitrators and lawyers: Geneva as a school
A legal centre reproduces itself through training. The University of Geneva, with its law faculty and the master’s programme in international dispute settlement that it organises jointly with the… Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeChecklist: drafting a dispute resolution clause
Choose between arbitration, prior mediation and the state courts, depending on the nature of the transaction, the parties and the places of performance. Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financePhilanthropy and impact finance: where wealth meets cooperation — overview and summary
Philanthropy occupies a place in Geneva that the city’s history explains. The tradition of mutual aid born at the time of the Reformation, the Bourse française for refugees, the public-benefit… Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeA tradition and an ecosystem
Geneva has a large number of public-benefit foundations, many of which are linked to wealthy families, to companies, to international organisations or to academic institutions. Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeThe legal and tax framework for foundations
The purpose of a foundation under Swiss law is the dedication of assets to a special purpose (Art. 80 CC). Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeThe philanthropic services of the financial centre
Geneva’s private banks, independent asset managers, family offices, lawyers and fiduciaries offer their clients structured philanthropic services. Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeImpact finance
Impact finance denotes investments made with the intention of producing a positive and measurable social or environmental effect together with a financial return. Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeSustainable finance and its ambiguities
Impact finance forms part of the broader movement of sustainable finance, which grew to considerable proportions during the 2010s and 2020s. Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeCriticisms of philanthropy
The philanthropy of great fortunes attracts criticism, in Switzerland as elsewhere. Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeMicrofinance: a Geneva case
Microfinance, that is to say the provision of financial services — credit, savings, insurance, payments — to populations excluded from the banking system in developing countries, is one of the… Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeInternational organisations as investors and borrowers
The international organisations and global funds established in Geneva are also financial actors in their own right. Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeCrypto-assets and digital assets in the service of humanitarian action
Crypto-assets and digital assets, whose regulatory framework Part K will describe, find applications in humanitarian action and philanthropy. Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeThe philanthropy of Geneva families: a long tradition
Several Geneva families have practised philanthropy for generations. The foundations they have created finance museums, cultural institutions, hospitals, university chairs, social works and… Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeMeasuring the effect: methods and limits
The measurement of social or environmental effect is the central difficulty of impact finance and philanthropy. Several methods coexist. Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeUmbrella foundations and endowment funds
Creating a foundation requires capital, governance and administration that not every philanthropist wishes to take on. Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financePhilanthropy and taxation
In Switzerland, the taxation of philanthropy combines the tax exemption of public-benefit foundations with the deductibility of donations. Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financePhilanthropy in the service of International Geneva
A particular circle connects Geneva philanthropy and International Geneva. Private Geneva foundations finance international organisations, humanitarian programmes and initiatives of International… Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeFoundation governance: from the founder to the board
Since a foundation outlives its founder, its governance is the principal issue for its longevity. Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeA case: structuring a family commitment
Worked example. A Geneva family wishes to devote CHF 30 million to education in West Africa. Three options are examined with its adviser. Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financePhilanthropy and the succession of fortunes
The transfer of fortunes, a central concern of private banking described in Part E, intersects with philanthropy at one precise point: the generation that inherits wants to give meaning to what it… Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeConclusion to Part F
International Geneva and the financial centre share a city, a history and an image. Read more Geneva · International Geneva and financeChecklist: structuring a philanthropic commitment
Define the objectives, the causes and the time horizon of the commitment, as well as the role of the family members. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingFrom trading post to terminal: a history of commodity trading in Geneva — overview and summary
Geneva commodity trading has a long prehistory and a short history. The prehistory goes back to the medieval fairs, described in Part A, through which spices, cloth and metals passed, and to the… Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingThe Swiss pioneers of the nineteenth century
The Swiss tradition of commodity trading goes back, according to the account given by the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, to the first half of the nineteenth century, when pioneers such as… Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingThe Société générale de surveillance
The creation of the Société générale de surveillance was a decisive stage in the formation of the Geneva commodity-trading ecosystem. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity trading1956: the arrival of Cargill
The establishment in Geneva of Cargill, the world’s leading grain trader, marks, according to Le Temps, the beginning of a new era for commodity trading in Switzerland, in whose wake dozens of… Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingThe agricultural traders follow
In Cargill’s wake, the other large agricultural traders settled in the Lake Geneva region, following trajectories that Le Temps has retraced. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingThe oil era
From the 1960s and 1970s onwards, oil trading took off in Geneva. The city became home to independent companies that bought and sold crude oil and refined products outside the integrated circuits of… Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingThe independents of the 1990s and 2000s
The 1990s and 2000s saw the emergence in Geneva of a new generation of independent traders, often founded by executives from the major houses. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingThe 2010s and 2020s: growth, crises and controversies
The last two decades have been marked by considerable growth in Geneva’s commodity trading and by mounting controversy. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingAndré & Cie: rise and fall of a Lake Geneva pioneer
The history of André & Cie deserves to be recalled, because it illustrates both the early development of commodity trading on Lake Geneva and its fragilities. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingThe Cold War and East-West trade
Geneva’s role in East-West trade during the Cold War goes beyond the example of Cargill. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingGeneva’s commodity trading and Africa: a long-standing relationship
The relations between Geneva’s commodity trading and Africa, which Part I will explore in greater depth, go back to the years that followed independence. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingTraders and producing states: a structuring relationship
The history of Geneva’s commodity trading is also the history of its relations with producing states. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingGeneva’s commodity trading and finance: a gradual convergence
The development of commodity trading in Geneva gradually transformed the financial centre. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingFederal policy towards commodity trading: three reports
For a long time the Confederation ignored commodity trading, which no law addressed and no authority supervised as such. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingTraders and International Geneva
Commodity trading and International Geneva, described in Part F, grew up side by side without mixing, and then met. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingThe oil shocks and the birth of the spot market
Independent oil trading was born of a market rupture. Until the 1970s, oil was marketed by the large integrated companies, which extracted, transported, refined and distributed within closed chains… Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingFrom traders to groups: professionalisation
The trading houses of the 2010s no longer resemble those of the 1980s. The growth in volumes, the entry of banks into their capital or their financing, the demands of the authorities and criminal… Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingA chronology of Geneva’s commodity trading
DateEvent19th centurySwiss commodity trading pioneers in Winterthur, Vevey and Lausanne1915Establishment of the Société générale de surveillance in Geneva1956Arrival of Cargill; Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingChecklist: understanding how a trading company is established
Identify the legal structure of the group: place of incorporation, registered office, centre of effective management, operational offices. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingThe landscape of the trading houses — overview and summary
Who are Geneva’s commodity traders? The question seems simple, but the answer is not. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingHow many companies, how many jobs?
The number of trading companies established in Switzerland and in Geneva varies according to the sources and the definitions used. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingA typology of commodity traders
Commodity trading companies can be classified according to several criteria: whether they are independent or belong to a group, their specialisation by product, their size and their degree of… Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingThe giants: orders of magnitude
The large traders rank among the biggest companies in the world by turnover, a figure that reflects the value of the goods they buy and sell without conveying their value added or their profits. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingGeneva, Zug, Lugano: three Swiss centres
Swiss commodity trading is divided between three main centres, whose profiles differ. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingStructures, governance and succession
The large trading houses have distinctive governance structures, inherited from their entrepreneurial origins. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingThe banks and the other players in the cluster
The trading companies form only the core of the Geneva cluster, which Chapter IV will describe in detail. The banks play an essential role in it. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingThe trade associations
Swiss commodity trading organised itself late. Le Temps noted in February 2023 that the question of creating an association of trading companies had arisen. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingWhat draws commodity traders to Geneva
The factors that make Geneva attractive to commodity traders largely coincide with those that the preceding parts identified for the financial centre, with a few particularities. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingPortraits of trading houses
Without claiming to be exhaustive, a few portraits drawn from the publicly available information illustrate the diversity of the houses established in Geneva and in Switzerland. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingCommodity traders and their owners
The ownership of trading houses shapes their behaviour. Houses owned by their executives, such as Vitol, Trafigura or Mercuria, align the interests of managers and owners, encourage entrepreneurial… Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingMid-sized traders: the diversity of the centre
Behind the giants, the mid-sized traders form the fabric of the Geneva centre. They employ from a few dozen to a few hundred people, handle substantial volumes in one or more commodities, and stand… Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingThe oil and mining companies and their Geneva offices
The integrated oil and mining companies, whose core business is extraction and processing, maintain trading offices in Geneva responsible for marketing their production and optimising their supplies. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingCommodity traders and the Geneva labour market
Commodity trading employs a particular population in Geneva. The traders themselves, a few hundred in number, are mostly foreign, trained in the large houses or in the specialised programmes, and… Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingThe agricultural traders of the Lake Geneva region
Agricultural trading has its own geography, which extends beyond the canton of Geneva. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingPortrait of a mid-sized trading house
Between the giants and the micro-enterprises, the centre counts dozens of mid-sized houses, employing between twenty and two hundred people and specialising by product or by region. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingChecklist: assessing a trading counterparty
Identify the legal structure of the group and the contracting entity, as well as its beneficial owners and its managers. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingThe trader’s profession — overview and summary
What does a commodity trader actually do? The question deserves a precise answer, because the profession is little understood and often caricatured. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingThe commodities
The commodities traded from Geneva fall into three broad families. Energy comprises crude oil, refined products — petrol, diesel, jet fuel, fuel oil —, natural gas, whether liquefied or delivered by… Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingThe contracts
The trader works through contracts. The sales contract specifies the commodity, the quality, the quantity, the price or the pricing formula, the place and conditions of delivery, the terms of… Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingHow the trader earns his living
The trader’s remuneration comes from the exploitation of differentials, which practitioners call arbitrage in the economic sense of the term. Four types of arbitrage structure the craft. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingHedging price risk
The trader’s margin comes from differentials between places, times, qualities and forms, but a movement in market prices between purchase and sale could wipe it out. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingLogistics
Trading is a craft of logistics as much as of prices. A cargo of oil must be loaded at a terminal, carried by a chartered vessel, possibly stored in a depot, and then discharged at the buyer’s… Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingThe risks of the craft
The trader assumes many risks, and it is the mastery of these that distinguishes the durable houses from the adventurers. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingThe trader’s skills
The craft demands a rare combination of skills. The trader must know his commodity, its grades, its uses and its markets. He must master the financial instruments of hedging and financing. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingA day in the life of a trader
To give substance to this description, here is the outline, simplified and fictitious, of a day in the life of an oil products trader based in Geneva. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingThe trader’s ethics
The trader’s craft raises ethical questions that the following parts will examine in detail and that should be announced here. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingThe trader and the futures markets: a two-way relationship
The futures markets serve traders as a means of hedging their risks, but traders also influence those markets. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingThe trader in the face of crises: 2020 and 2022
Two recent crises have put the trader’s craft to the test. The pandemic of 2020 caused a collapse in energy demand, briefly negative oil prices on certain American markets, massive logistical… Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingThe intermediaries: brokers, agents and introducers
Trading relies on intermediaries whose role is often overlooked. Brokers bring buyers and sellers together, on the physical markets as on the futures markets, and receive a commission. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingTrading in liquefied natural gas and electricity
Two markets have taken on new importance since 2022. Liquefied natural gas, whose cargoes are traded like those of oil, has seen its global trade reorganised after the halt of Russian pipeline… Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingMetals trading and the transition
Metals occupy a growing place in Geneva trading, alongside Zug, the traditional centre for metals. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingTrading and geopolitics: straits, canals, blockades
The trader lives from the geography of flows, and that geography is a political one. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingThe professions around the trader
The trader is only the visible part of a team. The operator, responsible for execution, follows the cargo from loading to discharge, organises the documents, inspections, insurance and payments, and… Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingWhat the trader expects from a financial centre
Because the trader is mobile, the centre must offer what cannot be found elsewhere. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingChecklist: analysing a trading transaction
Define precisely the commodity, its quality, its quantity and the permitted tolerances. Fix the price formula, the market reference, the premium or discount and the pricing date. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingThe Geneva cluster: banks, inspection, chartering, insurance, law — overview and summary
What distinguishes Geneva from the other trading centres is the density of the services that surround its traders. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingTrade finance: the bank at the heart of the cluster
Trade finance constitutes, according to the Fondation Genève Place Financière, the second pillar of the Geneva financial centre, alongside wealth management and commercial and retail banking. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingInspection: the Société générale de surveillance
Inspection guarantees that the goods delivered correspond to the goods sold. The Société générale de surveillance, established in Geneva since 1915 and presented as the world’s number one in… Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingChartering and maritime transport
Maritime transport is the physical link in the trading chain. Geneva, a city with no access to the sea, nevertheless houses one of the world’s principal communities of charterers, shipbrokers and… Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingInsurance
Insurance covers the risks that the trader can neither avoid nor hedge on the markets: loss of or damage to cargoes, civil liability, political risks — expropriation, war, transfer restrictions — and… Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingLaw: contracts, compliance, arbitration
Geneva’s law firms are an essential component of the cluster. They draft the sale, financing, chartering and storage contracts. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingTraining, research and representation
The Geneva cluster also includes training and research institutions. The University of Geneva offers specialised programmes in commodity trading, supported by the sector, which train professionals… Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingInterdependence and its risks
The members of the cluster are interdependent. The trader needs the bank, which needs the inspector, who needs the charterer, who needs the insurer, and all of them need the lawyers. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingThe weaknesses of the cluster
Several developments threaten the density of the Geneva cluster. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingWhat the cluster teaches
The Geneva trading cluster illustrates an idea that this book develops throughout: a financial centre is a system of relationships, far more than the sum of its firms. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingPhysical infrastructure: free ports, warehouses and laboratories
Geneva, a city without a seaport, nevertheless has physical infrastructure linked to trading. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingThe cluster and the demands of sustainability
Sustainability requirements are transforming the cluster. The financing banks incorporate environmental and social criteria into their decisions, decline to finance certain commodities — thermal… Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingThe cantonal banks and the new financiers
The withdrawal of several large banks from trade finance, described in Part H, opened up a space that other players have occupied. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingInsurance and the London market
The insurance of trading activity, mentioned above, calls for a word of clarification. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingInspection: competition and digitalisation
The Société générale de surveillance, whose presence in Geneva since 1915 has been described, is not alone. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingThe cycle of a cargo through the cluster
Worked example. A Geneva trading house buys 100,000 tonnes of wheat from an Eastern European exporter for USD 25 million and sells them on to a North African importer. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingThe cluster and the authorities
The Geneva cluster maintains a relationship with the authorities that has grown denser over time. The State Secretariat for Economic Affairs applies sanctions and controls exports; Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingGeneva, a maritime centre without a sea
The paradox of a trading centre without a port is that of chartering. Geneva is home to dozens of chartering, shipbroking and ship management companies, as well as to the shipping departments of the… Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingThe lawyers of commodity trading
Commodity trading has given rise in Geneva to a legal specialism. The law firms of the centre have built teams devoted to international sales contracts, trade finance, security over goods, transport,… Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingThe cluster seen from outside: what competitors and critics say
The Geneva cluster is closely observed by its competitors and by its critics. The competing centres, Dubai and Singapore foremost among them, strive to reproduce its components by attracting… Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingChecklist: assessing the strength of the cluster before setting up
Identify the banks active in trade finance and their terms, as well as the non-bank alternatives. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingThe economic weight of commodity trading: the Federal Statistical Office versus the Swiss National Bank — overview and summary
How much does commodity trading weigh in the Swiss and Geneva economies? For a long time the question received contradictory answers, varying by a factor of three depending on the sources and methods… Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingThe historical estimates
For decades, the weight of Swiss commodity trading was known only through estimates. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingThe National Bank’s merchanting statistics
The principal source of the historical estimates is the merchanting statistics compiled by the Swiss National Bank as part of the balance of payments. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingThe Federal Statistical Office survey
In November 2023, the Federal Council instructed the Federal Statistical Office to measure the commodity trading sector by surveying around 400 companies with at least three employees. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingThe composition of the sector according to the Federal Statistical Office
The statistics published in November 2025 are not confined to a single overall figure. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingExplaining the gap
The gap between the CHF 58.6 billion of merchanting receipts recorded by the National Bank and the CHF 19.2 billion of value added measured by the Federal Statistical Office, both for 2024, is… Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingThe weight of commodity trading in Geneva
For Geneva, the value added of CHF 11.2 billion measured by the Federal Statistical Office for 2024 represents a significant share of the cantonal gross domestic product. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingThe political stakes of measurement
The measurement of commodity trading carries political stakes. A sector that accounts for 6.7 per cent of gross domestic product justifies favourable framework conditions and regulatory caution,… Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingReading a commodity trading statistic: three pitfalls
The experience of the debates on the weight of commodity trading makes it possible to identify three pitfalls into which commentators, policymakers and sometimes practitioners regularly fall. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingCommodity trading statistics and the political debate
The measurement of commodity trading has played a part in several Swiss political debates. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingA comparison with wealth management
The measurement of commodity trading can be set against that of wealth management, for which Part E gave the orders of magnitude. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingThe other measures: indirect jobs, tax revenue, property
Beyond value added, the weight of commodity trading can be measured by its indirect effects. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingEmployment statistics: three sources, three figures
Employment in commodity trading illustrates the difficulties of measurement. The Federal Statistical Office, in its direct survey, counts the companies whose principal activity is commodity trading,… Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingValue added per job
The value added of CHF 19.2 billion measured by the Federal Statistical Office for 2024, set against the jobs in commodity trading in the strict sense, gives a value added per job in the order of one… Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingTax revenue from commodity trading
The tax revenue that commodity trading brings to the canton derives from two taxes. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingDo the competing financial centres measure better?
The difficulty of measuring commodity trading is not peculiar to Switzerland. Singapore publishes data on its trader accreditation programme and on merchandise trade, which include physical flows… Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingProposal: a satellite account for commodity trading
The measurement of commodity trading would benefit from being complemented by a satellite account, an instrument of the national accounts that makes it possible to isolate a cross-cutting activity,… Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingMethodological note on the Federal Statistical Office survey
The Federal Statistical Office survey of commodity traders, whose first monetary figures appeared in November 2025, rests on a definition, a perimeter and a method that the reader must know in order… Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingCommodity trading in Geneva’s gross domestic product
The gross domestic product of the canton of Geneva, calculated by the Federal Statistical Office and analysed by the cantonal statistical office, places the canton among the most productive in… Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingWhat the figures do not say
The statistics of commodity trading measure value added, jobs and revenue, but they do not measure what constitutes, for the financial centre, part of the sector’s interest. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingChecklist: using commodity trading statistics
State the source of each figure: Federal Statistical Office, National Bank, umbrella association, private study. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingTaxation of commodity trading and competition between centres: Dubai, Singapore and the others — overview and summary
Taxation has always been among the factors that determine where traders establish themselves, and competition between financial centres is played out there to a large extent. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingGeneva’s taxation of commodity trading
Until 2019, most trading companies established in Geneva benefited from privileged cantonal tax regimes, the auxiliary company and mixed company statuses, which sharply reduced the taxation of… Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingDubai
Within a decade Dubai has established itself as Geneva’s principal competitor in commodity trading. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingSingapore
Singapore is Geneva’s other major competitor. Since the 2000s the city-state has developed a policy of attracting traders based on an accreditation programme that grants reduced tax rates to trading… Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingThe movements observed
The movements between financial centres have not, so far, translated into a decline of Geneva commodity trading. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingGeneva’s durable strengths
In the face of this competition, Geneva has strengths that the preceding chapters have described and that the actors of the sector emphasise. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingLondon, Houston, Shanghai and the others
Geneva also competes with other centres. London remains the historic home of the futures markets for metals and North Sea oil, of marine insurance and of trading law. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingThe energy transition and the Geneva centre
In the long run, the energy transition is the most important factor for the future of Geneva’s commodity trading. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingSwiss policy towards commodity trading
For a long time the federal authorities approached commodity trading with an attitude of benevolent neutrality, taking the view that it fell within economic freedom and called for no specific… Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingThe traders and the centre: a permanent dialogue
The relationship between the traders and the Geneva centre rests on a permanent dialogue, whose terms have changed over time. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingThe OECD minimum tax and commodity trading
The minimum taxation of large groups, which stems from the 2021 agreement of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and has applied in Switzerland since 1 January 2024 by way of a… Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingThe free zones of the Gulf
The Emirati model rests on free zones, territories with their own regulations, in some cases their own courts, and tax exemptions, where foreign companies can establish themselves without a local… Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingSanctions as a factor in location decisions
The sanctions against Russia have introduced a new factor in location decisions. Since Switzerland adopted the European Union’s sanctions, the activities linked to Russian oil, part of which the… Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingThe role of the banks in location decisions
A trader sets up where it can obtain financing. The presence in Geneva of the financing cluster described in Chapter IV is the centre’s first argument. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingGeneva’s commodity trading on the horizon of 2035
Part K proposes scenarios for the financial centre as a whole, in which commodity trading occupies a particular place. Three developments appear likely. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingZug: competition within Switzerland
Competition between centres also comes from inside the country. The canton of Zug, an hour from Zurich, is home to the headquarters of the world’s largest metals and commodities trader and to a… Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingGeneva’s cantonal policy towards commodity trading
For a long time the canton of Geneva treated commodity trading with discreet benevolence, through its tax statuses and the welcome extended by its administration, without any explicit policy. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingAn example of a location decision
Worked example. A trader in refined petroleum products, established in Geneva with 80 employees, is considering in 2026 whether to open an office in Dubai for its activities in the Middle East and… Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingConclusion to Part G
Commodity trading is the second pillar of the Geneva financial centre, alongside wealth management. Read more Geneva · Geneva, capital of commodity tradingChecklist: comparing centres for the location of a trading business
Calculate the effective corporate tax burden in each centre, taking into account the minimum taxation of large groups and any approved tax regimes. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingTrade finance: instruments, banks, risks — overview and summary
Commodity trade finance, or transactional commodity finance, is a banking speciality of which Geneva is one of the principal centres in the world. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingThe logic of transactional finance
Transactional finance rests on a simple idea: each trading transaction finances itself. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingThe documentary credit
The documentary credit, or letter of credit, is the central instrument of commodity trade finance. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingThe other instruments
The documentary credit is only one instrument among a broad range. Trade finance draws on a set of tools adapted to the different phases and the different risks of commodity transactions. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingThe trade finance banks in Geneva
Trade finance in Geneva is practised by a group of banks whose composition has changed over time. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingThe risks of trade finance
Trade finance carries risks of its own, which the events of 2020 brought to light and which the following chapter analyses. They can be grouped into a few categories. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingHow the sector has evolved since 2020
The frauds of 2020 brought about a contraction and a transformation of trade finance. Several banks withdrew or scaled back their activity, as the following chapter describes. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingTrade finance and wealth management
Trade finance and wealth management, the two pillars of the financial centre, maintain relationships that market participants do not always emphasise. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingDocumentary risk up close: anatomy of a bill of lading
The bill of lading deserves particular attention, so heavily does it concentrate the risks of trade finance. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingPre-financing for producer states: a special case
The pre-financing that traders grant to the national companies of producer countries deserves separate examination, given its importance for Africa, which Part I will develop. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingThe documentary credit up close: a typical transaction
The documentary credit is worth following step by step, because its mechanics explain both its strength and its weaknesses. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingSecurity interests: pledges, assignments and fiduciary arrangements
Transactional financing rests on security interests whose legal soundness determines the credit. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingStructured finance: pre-export and inventory-backed financing
Beyond transactional operations, trade finance includes more complex structures in which the Geneva banks were pioneers. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingTrade finance and Basel III
Prudential regulation has made trade finance more expensive for banks. The capital requirements derived from the Basel accords, whose final version has applied in Switzerland since 1 January 2025,… Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingTrade finance in figures
Worked example. A Geneva bank devotes CHF 4 billion of facilities to transactional trade finance, spread across 60 traders. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingCredit insurance and public guarantees
Trade finance relies on insurers whom banks and traders call upon to transfer part of the risk. Private credit insurance covers a buyer’s default on payment, with ceilings per debtor and deductibles. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingChecklist: structuring a transactional financing
Identify precisely the goods being financed, their value, their liquidity and their place of storage or transport. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingThe frauds of 2020: when the cargoes do not exist — overview and summary
In the history of trade finance, 2020 will remain the year of the frauds. Within a few months, several traders based in Singapore, Dubai and elsewhere collapsed, revealing that they had obtained… Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingThe context: the pandemic and the collapse in prices
The frauds of 2020 were brought to light by a market shock. In the spring of 2020 the Covid-19 pandemic caused a collapse in energy demand and a sharp fall in oil prices, which briefly turned… Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingHin Leong: the collapse of a giant
Hin Leong Trading, founded in Singapore in 1963 by Lim Oon Kuin, was one of the largest independent oil traders in Asia. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingAgritrade, ZenRock, Hontop and the others
Other cases came to light at the same time. According to Global Trade Review, the first sign of trouble appeared in March 2020, when the Singapore trader Agritrade International was accused by ING,… Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingThe mechanics of the fraud
The frauds of 2020 exploited the structural weaknesses of transactional financing described in the previous chapter. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingThe banks: losses, withdrawals, closures
The consequences for the banks were immediate and lasting. ABN Amro, whose exposure to Hin Leong was exceeded only by that of HSBC, announced in August 2020 its complete withdrawal from the trade and… Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingThe lessons
The frauds of 2020 led banks and authorities to draw lessons, which Bloomberg summarised as follows: most banks chose to remain in an 18,000 billion dollar market and took steps to fight back. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingGeneva after 2020
The Geneva financial centre drew its own particular lessons from the frauds of 2020. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingA long history: fraud before 2020
The frauds of 2020 form part of a long history. Commodity-backed financing has been exposed, since its origins, to the temptation to pledge goods that do not exist or to pledge them several times… Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingThe consequences for honest traders
The frauds of 2020 penalised traders who had no part in them. The contraction of credit, the tightening of conditions and the withdrawal of banks hit the whole sector, and in particular the mid-sized… Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingThe mechanisms in detail: documents, stocks, counterparties
The frauds of 2020 used three families of mechanisms which Geneva practitioners have since learned to recognise. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingThe Hin Leong trial and the question of responsibility
The trial of the founder of Hin Leong, which ended in 2024 with his conviction for cheating and abetting forgery, brought to light the responsibility of management in a fraud that auditors, banks and… Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingThe lessons for supervision
The frauds of 2020 raised the question of the supervision of trading and its financing. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingWhat fraud costs a financial centre
Worked example. According to estimates in the specialist press, the frauds of 2020 caused more than nine billion dollars of potential losses to the banks, a substantial share of which fell on… Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingThe frauds and Geneva’s reputation
Although the frauds of 2020 took place mainly in Singapore and Dubai, their consequences reached Geneva through the banks. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingThe frauds and insurance: who pays in the end?
When a fraud is discovered, the question of who pays arises between the banks, the insurers, the auditors, the inspectors and the management. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingInternal fraud: the trader who hides its losses
Whereas the frauds of 2020 were directed against the banks, another category of fraud is directed against the trading house itself by its own employees. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingThe frauds and technology: what 2020 accelerated
The frauds of 2020 had an unexpected effect: they accelerated the digitalisation of trade finance, which the banks had been putting off for years for want of a common interest. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingChecklist: detecting the warning signs of trade finance fraud
Rapid growth in financed volumes without a corresponding increase in equity or operational capacity. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingSanctions: when the law interrupts the flows — overview and summary
On 28 February 2022, at an extraordinary meeting, the Federal Council decided to adopt the European Union’s sanctions against Russia. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingThe Swiss sanctions framework
Switzerland applies sanctions on the basis of the Federal Act on the Implementation of International Sanctions, known as the Embargo Act, which entered into force in 2003. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingFebruary 2022: the adoption of the sanctions against Russia
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 confronted Switzerland with a choice. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingThe frozen assets
The asset freeze is the most visible measure. As at 1 April 2025, the value of assets frozen in Switzerland as a result of the sanctions against Russia amounted to CHF 7.4 billion. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingSanctions and commodity trading
The sanctions struck Geneva’s commodity trading even more directly than its wealth management. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingThe circumvention cases
The sanctions gave rise to circumvention cases involving Geneva actors. The most significant concerns a trader established in Geneva, described by the press as the first European national sanctioned… Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingSanctions compliance: organisation and practice
Sanctions compliance requires institutions and traders to put in place a specific organisation, the elements of which have become clearer since 2022. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingThe other sanctions regimes
Russia is not the only country targeted. Switzerland applies sanctions against Iran, North Korea, Syria, Belarus, Myanmar, Venezuela and other states, as well as measures against persons linked to… Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingWhat the sanctions have changed for Geneva
The sanctions adopted since 2022 have transformed the Geneva financial centre in several ways. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingNeutrality put to the test by sanctions
The adoption of the sanctions against Russia revived, in Switzerland, an old debate on neutrality, whose origins Parts C and F have traced. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingThe twentieth package and the evolution of the measures
The sanctions against Russia have extended well beyond the initial asset freezes and export bans. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingAmerican sanctions and their extraterritorial reach
American sanctions, described above as regards their reach, call for some clarification of their mechanics. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingManaging frozen assets
Freezing an asset does not make it disappear; it immobilises it. Its management raises questions that Geneva banks have had to resolve. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingThe neutrality initiative: the vote of 27 September 2026
Swiss sanctions policy is directly at stake in a popular vote scheduled for 27 September 2026. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingHumanitarian exemptions and International Geneva
Sanctions contain exemptions for humanitarian action, and Geneva, the humanitarian capital described in Part F, is one of the places where they are applied. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingSanctions and private law: contracts, force majeure and disputes
Beyond public law, sanctions disrupt contracts. A sale or financing contract concluded before a sanction and rendered unperformable after it raises questions of force majeure, impossibility,… Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingChecklist: managing sanctions risk in a commodity trading transaction
Screen all parties, beneficial owners, vessels, ports and goods against the Swiss, European, British and American lists. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingAnti-money laundering and politically exposed persons — overview and summary
Since 1990, the fight against money laundering has formed the bedrock of compliance in the Geneva financial centre. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingThe legal framework
The fight against money laundering rests on two pillars. The criminal pillar comprises Articles 305bis and 305ter of the Criminal Code, introduced in 1990, which penalise money laundering and the… Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingThe Reporting Office statistics
The annual reports of the Money Laundering Reporting Office Switzerland measure the growing intensity of the system. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingPolitically exposed persons
Politically exposed persons form the category of clients to which the regulations attach the highest degree of vigilance. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingThe cases that have marked the financial centre
Over the past two decades the Geneva financial centre has been hit by several money laundering cases involving politically exposed persons or funds of criminal origin. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingFINMA and enforcement
FINMA supervises compliance with anti-money laundering obligations by the institutions it licenses. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingCommodity traders and anti-money laundering
Trading companies generally fall outside the definition of a financial intermediary within the meaning of the Anti-Money Laundering Act, since they buy and sell goods for their own account. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingThe practical organisation of compliance
In a Geneva institution, anti-money laundering compliance rests on an organisation whose elements have become standardised. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingWhat money laundering teaches the financial centre
Thirty-five years after money laundering was made a criminal offence, the Geneva financial centre has internalised a requirement that the Due Diligence Agreement of 1977 had sketched out: to know… Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingAnti-money laundering from the practitioner’s perspective: three typical situations
Three typical situations encountered in Geneva practice illustrate the concrete difficulties of the fight against money laundering. They are described in schematic and fictitious form. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingThe 2025 revision: lawyers, notaries and advisers
For a long time the Anti-Money Laundering Act left outside its scope those advisory activities which involve no financial intermediation: the formation of companies, foundations and trusts, the… Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingThe transparency register and the identification of beneficial owners
The Federal Act on the Transparency of Legal Entities, whose register comes into force on 1 October 2026, complements the fight against money laundering with a federal, non-public register of the… Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingMoney laundering and crypto-assets and digital assets
The fight against money laundering has extended to crypto-assets and digital assets, whose framework is described in Part K. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingA case: the suspicious activity report seen from the inside
Worked example. The head of compliance of a Geneva bank receives an alert on an account held by a company in the Emirates whose beneficial owner is a national of a West African country. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingTraining and the culture of compliance
Compliance rests on people. Over thirty years the Geneva financial centre has built up a population of specialists whose training has become a sector in its own right. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingInternational cooperation: mutual legal assistance and the exchange of information
Since the fight against money laundering is international by nature, the Geneva financial centre depends on the cooperation of foreign authorities as much as on its own. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingChecklist: opening a relationship with a politically exposed person
Identify the politically exposed person status of the client, of the beneficial owner and of their close associates and family members, using databases and supplementary research. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingThe criminal liability of companies: Gunvor, Glencore, Trafigura — overview and summary
Since 2003 Swiss law has made it possible to convict a company for offences committed within it where it has failed to take all the reasonable and necessary organisational measures to prevent them. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingArticle 102 of the Criminal Code
Article 102 of the Criminal Code, which came into force in 2003, establishes the criminal liability of the enterprise. It distinguishes two forms of liability. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingGunvor: Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, then Ecuador
Gunvor, an energy trading company whose principal office is in Geneva, was the first large trading house to be convicted in Switzerland on the basis of Article 102. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingGlencore: the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Glencore, a trading and mining group run from Baar in the canton of Zug, was convicted by summary penalty order of the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland of 5 August 2024, at the end of a… Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingTrafigura: Angola and the first public trial
Trafigura, one of the largest oil trading companies in the world, operating from Geneva, was the first company to be tried in Switzerland, in a public trial, for the bribery of foreign public… Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingThe lessons
These three affairs share common features, from which practitioners can draw lessons. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingAnti-corruption compliance programmes
In response to these cases and to the demands of banks, authorities and business partners, the large trading houses have put in place anti-corruption compliance programmes whose components have… Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingForeign proceedings and international coordination
The Gunvor, Glencore and Trafigura cases all had an international dimension. Gunvor pleaded guilty in the United States over the Ecuadorian facts, where it was required to pay more than USD 661… Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingThe United States and United Kingdom proceedings: a comparison
The Swiss convictions of Geneva traders form part of an international movement of which the United States and the United Kingdom have been the driving forces. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingThe liability of executives and intermediaries
The sentencing of Trafigura’s former second-in-command to a term of imprisonment, described above, marked a turning point: the criminal liability of companies, introduced in 2003, had until then… Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingWhat the cases cost and what they yielded
Worked example. The three Geneva cases described in this chapter cost the companies concerned, in Switzerland alone, approximately CHF 94 million for Gunvor in 2019, CHF 86.7 million in 2024 for the… Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingArticle 102 in practice: what the company must prove
Article 102 of the Criminal Code, in its paragraph 2, punishes the company that has failed to take all reasonable and necessary organisational measures to prevent certain offences, including the… Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingIntermediaries: the weak link
The three cases have one point in common: the corrupt payments passed through intermediaries, agents, consultants, business introducers and service companies, remunerated by commissions of which a… Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingChecklist: assessing an anti-corruption compliance programme
Verify the existence of a code of conduct circulated to all employees and of a documented assessment of corruption risks. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingTransparency and accountability: from the Code of Obligations to sector initiatives — overview and summary
The transparency and accountability requirements imposed on trading and finance have multiplied over the past decade, under the influence of the cases described in the preceding chapters, of pressure… Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingThe responsible business initiative
On 29 November 2020, the Swiss people voted on the popular initiative “Entreprises responsables – pour protéger l’être humain et l’environnement” (Responsible Business Initiative – protecting human… Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingThe report on non-financial matters
The counter-proposal introduced into the Code of Obligations, at Art. 964a et seq., an obligation for large public-interest companies to draw up each year a report on non-financial matters. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingDue diligence in relation to minerals and child labour
The counter-proposal also introduced, at Art. 964j et seq. of the Code of Obligations, due diligence and transparency obligations for companies that place on the market or process in Switzerland… Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingTransparency of payments to governments
Art. 964d et seq. of the Code of Obligations require companies active in the extraction of minerals, oil or natural gas, or in the logging of primary forests, to publish each year a report on the… Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingThe Guiding Principles and the duty of vigilance
Beyond Swiss law, Geneva companies are confronted with the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, adopted in 2011. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingNon-governmental organisations as a counterweight
The demands for transparency and accountability owe much to non-governmental organisations, several of which are established in Geneva or elsewhere in Switzerland. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingThe role of banks in the accountability of commodity trading
The trade finance banks described in Chapter I of this Part constitute a lever of accountability that law and practice have progressively activated. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingIndividual liability: executives, employees, advisers
Corporate liability is coupled with that of natural persons. The cases described in the previous chapter led to the conviction of employees and, in the Trafigura case, of a former executive, with… Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingTransparency as a selling point for the financial centre
The demands for transparency and accountability, often experienced as constraints, can become a selling point for the Geneva financial centre. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingThe new initiative of 2025 and the counter-proposal
The debate on corporate responsibility, which was thought to have been closed by the vote of 2020, has resumed. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingThe European duty of vigilance and its effects on Geneva
The European directive on corporate sustainability due diligence, adopted in 2024, imposes on large companies of the Union, and on third-country companies generating substantial turnover in the… Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingTransparency among traders: what has been done and what is missing
Since the federal reports of 2013 and 2018, described in Part G, the transparency of Geneva’s commodity trading has progressed on several points. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingAn example: a trader’s due diligence report
Worked example. A Geneva metals trader employing 400 people and generating a turnover of USD 12 billion, of which USD 3 billion in the European Union, prepares its first due diligence report. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingBanks confronted with their clients’ duty of vigilance
The transparency and due diligence obligations imposed on traders reach the banks indirectly. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingTransparency of the private houses: the question of ownership
A particular question of transparency concerns the ownership of the trading houses. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingWhat transparency costs and what it yields
Transparency has a cost that Geneva companies measure and a return that they measure less. Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingConclusion of Part H
Part H has examined the risks of commodity trading and of the finance that accompanies it: the fragility of documentary financing, revealed by the frauds of 2020, and then the interruption of flows… Read more Geneva · Financing, securing, controllingChecklist: preparing a report on non-financial matters
Determine whether the company falls within the scope of Art. 964a et seq. of the Code of Obligations and of the obligations relating to climate matters. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaA long-standing relationship: missions, trading, independence, International Geneva — overview and summary
Relations between Geneva and Africa go back well before contemporary commodity trading. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe missions and the Geneva view of Africa
In the nineteenth century, Protestant Geneva took part in the missionary movement that brought European pastors, physicians and teachers to Africa. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaMerchants, bankers and colonial trade
Switzerland never possessed colonies, but its merchants and bankers took part in colonial trade from the eighteenth century onwards. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaIndependence and International Geneva
The African independences, between the late 1950s and the mid-1970s, transformed the relationship between Geneva and the continent. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaGeneva and French-speaking Africa
The French language constitutes a particular link between Geneva and some twenty African countries, the significance of which Part J will analyse. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe years 1980-2000: African fortunes and the first cases
During the 1980s and 1990s, financial relations between Geneva and Africa intensified, against a background marked by the continent’s economic crises, structural adjustment programmes, indebtedness… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaSwitzerland and apartheid: an open file
Relations between Switzerland and apartheid-era South Africa constitute a sensitive chapter, which historical research has illuminated only in part. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaGeneva, an African crossroads in the 21st century
At the turn of the 21st century, Geneva established itself as a crossroads of African business. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaWhat history teaches
The history of relations between Geneva and Africa teaches several things that the following chapters will explore in greater depth. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaGeneva’s African diaspora
Geneva is home to a large and diverse African diaspora, made up of international civil servants, diplomats, students, entrepreneurs, professionals and workers from across the continent. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaGeneva and the African institutions
Geneva hosts meetings and representations of African institutions: the African Union maintains a permanent delegation to the United Nations in Geneva, the regional economic communities and the… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaSwiss development cooperation in Africa
The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs run cooperation programmes in Africa that constitute one of the oldest and most continuous channels of… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaTrade between Switzerland and Africa in figures
Trade between Switzerland and Africa provides a partial measure of the relationship. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaGeneva’s banks and Africa: a discreet history
The banking relationship between Geneva and Africa preceded contemporary commodity trading. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaAfricans in Geneva: students, diplomats, executives
The relationship also runs through people. Since independence, Geneva has welcomed African students to its faculties of law, economics and medicine and to the Graduate Institute of International… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaInternational Geneva and the African crises
Africa’s crises, whether humanitarian, health-related or political, are dealt with in part in Geneva. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaGeneva and North Africa: the Maghreb and Egypt
Although the present chapter has spoken mainly of sub-Saharan Africa, the trade figures serve as a reminder that North Africa weighs at least as heavily in the relationship. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe sources: archives, historiography and debates
The history of the relations between Geneva and Africa has yet to be written as a whole. The reader who wishes to explore it further has to rely on scattered sources. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaChecklist: understanding a client’s relations with an African country
Identify the channels through which the client is linked to the country: origin, activities, public office, family relations, investments. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaAfrican commodities: oil, cocoa, coffee, cotton, metals, gold — overview and summary
Africa is, after Europe, the second largest region of origin of the commodities traded from Switzerland. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaOil from the Gulf of Guinea
Oil is the leading African product traded from Geneva. The countries of the Gulf of Guinea — Nigeria, Angola, Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, Ghana — and, to a lesser extent, Chad, South… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaCocoa and coffee
West Africa supplies the greater part of the world’s cocoa, Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana being the leading producers, followed by Nigeria and Cameroon. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaCotton
Cotton from West Africa — Mali, Burkina Faso, Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Chad, Cameroon — is one of the main export crops of the Sahel region, where it provides a livelihood for millions of people. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaCopper, cobalt and the metals of the energy transition
Central and southern Africa supply a significant share of the world’s copper and cobalt, with the Democratic Republic of the Congo dominating the production of cobalt, which is indispensable for… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaGold
Gold occupies a particular place in the relations between Switzerland and Africa. Switzerland is home to several of the world’s leading gold refineries, whose importance Part G recalled. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe distribution of value
The central question in the trade in African commodities is that of the distribution of value between producing countries, traders and consumers. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaGeneva traders and African states: three models of relationship
The relationships between Geneva traders and African states can be described according to three models, each of which carries advantages and risks. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe national oil companies: governance and issues
The African national oil companies — those of Nigeria, Angola, Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, Ghana and others — are the main counterparties of the Geneva traders for oil. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaInfrastructure: ports, refineries, warehouses
The trade in African commodities depends on infrastructure whose condition determines costs and risks. African ports, often congested and poorly equipped, lengthen loading and unloading times. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaTimber, fertilisers and the other flows
Beyond the major products, other flows link Africa to Geneva trading. Tropical timber from Central Africa — Cameroon, Gabon, Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo — is exported to Europe and Asia… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaCocoa in 2025-2026: record prices and fragility
Since 2024 the cocoa market has experienced an unprecedented surge in prices, triggered by poor harvests in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, which together supply the greater part of world production, as a… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaGold: the Swiss refineries and traceability
Gold is the leading African product imported into Switzerland, as the figures in Chapter I showed. Its trade raises questions that the trade in oil or cocoa does not encounter to the same degree. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaOil from Nigeria, Angola and Congo: contracts and practices
The African oil traded from Geneva comes mainly from Nigeria, Angola, the Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and Chad. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaFertilisers, rice and food security
The relationship with Africa, which is not confined to African exports, also comprises imports that Geneva traders organise towards the continent. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaCongolese cobalt in 2025-2026: quotas and sovereignty
The Democratic Republic of the Congo, which produced around 74 per cent of the world’s cobalt in 2025, decided that year to bring its weight to bear on the market. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaSimandou iron ore: a new African flow
The Simandou project in Guinea shows the scale on which African flows can be created. Read more Geneva · Geneva and Africa“African quality” fuels: the toxic fuels affair
Geneva’s trading sector sells part of its fuels to Africa, an activity that was the subject, in September 2016, of a Public Eye investigation that left its mark on the financial centre. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaCoffee: Ethiopia, Uganda and the Lake Geneva traders
African coffee deserves a treatment of its own, which this chapter has so far dealt with alongside cocoa. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaChecklist: structuring a commodity purchase from an African state-owned enterprise
Verify that the seller has the authority to market the production and that the award procedures — tender, direct contract — are documented. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaResource-backed loans and African debt — overview and summary
When an oil-producing state needs money and the capital markets are closed to it, it can pledge its future production. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe mechanism
A loan backed by natural resources is, according to the definition given by the Natural Resource Governance Institute, a mechanism by which a country obtains funds in exchange for future revenue… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe data
The Natural Resource Governance Institute examined 52 resource-backed loans granted between 2004 and 2018, for a total amount of more than USD 164 billion, of which 30, with a combined value of USD… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaChad and Glencore
The case of Chad illustrates the mechanisms and the risks. In May 2013 and April 2014, the national company, the Société des hydrocarbures du Tchad, concluded prefinancing agreements with Glencore… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe Republic of the Congo, Glencore and Trafigura
The Republic of the Congo, whose corruption cases involving Gunvor were described in Part H, contracted oil-backed loans of considerable size from Swiss traders. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe effects on African debt
Resource-backed loans contributed to the debt crises that struck several African countries after 2014. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe implications for the Geneva financial centre
Resource-backed loans place particular responsibilities on Geneva’s traders, banks and advisers. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaChinese creditors and traders: two logics
The coexistence of Chinese state-owned banks and international traders among the resource-backed lenders in Africa calls for a comparison. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaResource-backed loans and the law
Resource-backed loans raise legal questions that Geneva practitioners encounter in structuring and in litigation. The governing law is most often English law or Swiss law. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe international framework: restructurings and the Common Framework
Resource-backed loans belong to a landscape of African debt that the 2020s have transformed. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaAnalysing sustainability: what the lender must verify
A Geneva lender contemplating a prepayment facility for an African state or state-owned enterprise must carry out a sustainability analysis that recent cases have made indispensable. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe clauses of resource-backed loans: what a lawyer examines
Resource-backed loan agreements, drafted in English and most often governed by English law, combine a credit agreement with a long-term supply contract, with clauses that Geneva lawyers have learned… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe alternatives: projects, bonds, development banks
Resource-backed loans are not the only way of financing a producer state. Project finance, which secures the loan against a specific asset, whether a mine, a refinery or a pipeline, with dedicated… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe trading house as lender: a model in question
The transformation of trading houses into lenders to states, which this chapter has described, raises a question of business model. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaAngola and China: the largest borrower
Angola, which the Natural Resource Governance Institute identifies as Africa’s largest borrower under resource-backed loans, illustrates the Chinese version of the mechanism on the scale of an entire… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaSouth Sudan: prepayments in a conflict zone
South Sudan, independent since 2011 and in civil war from 2013, is the third country, alongside Chad and the Republic of the Congo, where trading houses have been the main providers of oil-backed… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe Ghanaian counter-example: the Cocobod syndicated loan
Not all resource-backed financing is opaque. Ghana’s cocoa board, Cocobod, has every year since the 1992–1993 season taken out a syndicated loan from international banks to finance the purchase of… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaReporting and measuring: resource-backed loans in debt statistics
One of the reasons for the opacity of resource-backed loans lies in their statistical treatment. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaChecklist: structuring a prepayment to an African state-owned enterprise
Verify the legal capacity of the state-owned enterprise to contract, the parliamentary or governmental authorisations required and the state guarantees. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaAfrican elites, politically exposed persons and restitution: from Abacha to the act of 2015 — overview and summary
Since the 1980s Switzerland has returned more than USD 2 billion in illicit assets of politically exposed persons to foreign states. A substantial share of these restitutions concerns Africa. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaFrom cases to statutes: a history in three stages
The history of illicit asset recovery in Switzerland can be read in three stages. The first, opened in 1986 by the Marcos and Duvalier cases, is that of freezes ordered case by case by the Federal… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe Abacha case
Sani Abacha, Nigerian head of state from 1993 to 1998, embezzled, according to Public Eye, more than USD 2.2 billion in public funds. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe current framework: the Act on illicit assets
The Federal Act on the Freezing and Restitution of Illicit Assets Held by Foreign Politically Exposed Persons provides for three stages. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe African restitutions and their lessons
Beyond Nigeria, several African countries have benefited from Swiss restitutions or freezes. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaWhat this means for Geneva’s banks and advisers
For Geneva institutions serving an African clientele, the history of asset recovery imposes several requirements. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaGeneva’s role in asset recovery
Geneva occupies a particular place in the recovery of illicit assets. The Geneva Public Prosecutor’s Office conducted the criminal proceedings that led to the confiscation of the Abacha funds in… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaAfrican politically exposed persons: a typology
The category of politically exposed persons covers, in Africa as elsewhere, a variety of situations, which institutions must assess with discernment. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaMarcos, Duvalier, Arab Spring: the other cases
The Swiss asset-recovery framework was built on cases several of which are not African. Comparing them sheds light on the African situation. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaMonitoring the restituted funds
Restitution, which does not close the case, opens the question of how the funds are used. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaAfrican politically exposed persons today
The African politically exposed clientele of the financial centre has changed in nature since the affairs of the 1990s. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaMutual legal assistance: the ordinary route
The administrative freeze described in this chapter is the exception. The ordinary route for asset recovery is international mutual legal assistance in criminal matters, governed by a federal act of… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe United Nations Convention against Corruption and asset recovery
The Swiss framework forms part of a multilateral setting. The United Nations Convention against Corruption, the only global agreement in this field, brings together 191 states parties. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaIll-gotten gains: the Obiang affair in Geneva
Restitution cases concern property as well as accounts. In 2016 the Geneva Public Prosecutor’s Office opened criminal proceedings against the entourage of the President of Equatorial Guinea, in the… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaChecklist: serving an African private clientele in compliance with the asset-recovery framework
Identify the links of the client and his entourage with the exercise of public functions, public contracts, concessions and state-owned enterprises. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe new bridges: forums, investment, fintech, diaspora — overview and summary
Relations between Geneva and Africa go far beyond commodity trading and the assets of the elites. For some fifteen years, new bridges have been under construction. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe forums: Geneva as a meeting place for the African private sector
The Africa CEO Forum, founded in Geneva in 2012, is the most visible of these bridges. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe federal strategy for Africa
On 13 January 2021 the Federal Council approved its first strategy for sub-Saharan Africa, covering the period 2021–2024. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaProductive investment: an imbalance to be corrected
The main imbalance in relations between Geneva and Africa lies in the gap between the intensity of trading and wealth management and the weakness of productive investment. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaFintech, crypto assets and digital assets
Africa is a pioneer in financial technology. With 50 per cent of all mobile current accounts in the world, according to the federal strategy of 2021, the continent invented a form of banking without… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe diaspora as a bridge
Geneva’s African diaspora, whose diversity Chapter I described, forms a bridge of a particular kind. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe conditions for success
The new bridges between Geneva and Africa will bear fruit only under certain conditions. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaKigali 2026: the African private sector in search of critical mass
The Africa CEO Forum, founded in Geneva in 2012, was held in 2026 in Kigali, on 14 and 15 May, in the presence of heads of state and several thousand executives, on the theme of the critical mass… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaMobile money: USD 1,400 billion
In fifteen years Africa has built a payment infrastructure that Europe does not have. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe African Continental Free Trade Area
The economic integration of the continent is advancing with the African Continental Free Trade Area, whose agreement was signed in 2018 and under which trading began in 2021, with the aim of… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaPan-African banks and their Geneva partners
The African banking landscape has been transformed by the emergence of pan-African groups, Moroccan, Nigerian, South African and East African, present in dozens of countries, which have taken over… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaPrivate equity and African funds
African private equity, long a marginal activity, has become organised since the 2010s with pan-African and regional managers, funds specialising by sector, energy, agriculture, health, technology,… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaAfrican climate finance
Africa, which emits a small share of the world’s greenhouse gases and suffers a disproportionate share of the effects of climate change, needs adaptation and transition finance that international… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe federal strategy 2025–2028: what it provides and what is missing
The Federal Council’s Africa strategy for 2025–2028, described above, covers the whole continent for the first time and sets priorities: peace and governance, prosperity and transition, migration and… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaInvestment protection agreements and risk insurance
The Geneva investor who commits capital in Africa has at his disposal a legal framework that Switzerland has been building since the 1960s. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaHealth: the leading export item and a Geneva cluster
The first product that Switzerland sells to Africa is medicine: pharmaceutical products represented 46 per cent of Swiss exports to the continent in 2022, far ahead of chemicals, watches and… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaAfrican sovereign bonds and Geneva’s asset managers
The most important channel, by volume, through which savings managed in Geneva finance Africa is probably the sovereign bond market. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaCasablanca, Mauritius, Kigali: the African financial centres
Geneva is no longer alone in claiming the role of Africa’s financial centre. The African centres have developed. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaChecklist: preparing an investment in Africa from Geneva
Choose the country and the sector on the basis of an analysis of political stability, the legal framework, infrastructure and demand, taking account of the diversity of the continent. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaGood practices: banks, traders and advisers dealing with Africa — overview and summary
The preceding chapters have described the relations between Geneva and Africa in their historical depth, their economic intensity and their ambivalence. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaPrinciple 1: distinguishing without discriminating
The first principle consists in distinguishing, among African clients, counterparties and transactions, those that present particular risks from those that do not, without treating the continent as a… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaPrinciple 2: knowing the origin of funds and goods
The second principle consists in knowing the origin of funds, for wealth management and financing, and the origin of goods, for commodity trading. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaPrinciple 3: controlling intermediaries
The third principle consists in controlling the intermediaries — agents, business introducers, local partners, shell companies — through which corrupt payments frequently pass. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaPrinciple 4: anticipating political risk
The fourth principle consists in anticipating political change, whose frequency recent African history makes plain: coups d’état, contested transitions, changes of government. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaPrinciple 5: contributing to development
The fifth principle consists in conceiving relationships with Africa as partnerships in which the continent itself benefits. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaPrinciple 6: documenting in order to last
The five preceding principles have one thing in common: they are worth nothing unless they are documented. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaPrinciple 7: training and involving African partners
The final principle goes beyond compliance. Geneva actors who work with Africa over the long term have an interest in training and involving their African partners: the employees of their local… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaA country analysis grid
The principles are applied country by country, with the help of an analysis grid that structures the examination. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaAfrican intermediaries: a standard procedure
Intermediaries, whose role in corruption cases Part H has shown, require in Africa a procedure adapted to local realities. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaRelations with African authorities
In Africa, Geneva actors deal with tax authorities, central banks, financial regulators and prosecuting authorities whose practices vary. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaDisputes with African partners
Despite all precautions, disputes arise, and their handling has its own particularities. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaWhat African actors expect of Geneva
Since the good practices described in this chapter are written from the Geneva point of view, it is useful to hear the African one. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaGeneva and Africa in 2035
In the scenarios that Part K proposes for the financial centre, the relationship with Africa occupies a place that this chapter can define more precisely. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThree typical situations
Three situations, described schematically and in fictional terms, illustrate the application of these principles. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe internal governance of African relationships
The principles of this chapter presuppose an organisation. In the Geneva institutions that deal with Africa, the cases described in Parts H and I revealed one constant: the decision to enter into a… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaSanctions against African states
The sanctions regimes, whose operation Part H has described, concern several African states. The Geneva practitioner must be familiar with them. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaTwo further situations: gold and diaspora remittances
Two situations, fictional like the preceding ones, complete the three typical situations. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaA financial centre charter for Africa?
The principles of this chapter are formulated for individual institutions. It remains to be seen whether they could be formulated for the financial centre as a whole. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaConclusion of Part I
The relations between Geneva and Africa are long-standing, dense and ambivalent. They run through the missions and colonial trade, through the independences and International Geneva, through the… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaChecklist: assessing an African business relationship as a whole
Place the country in context by reference to governance indices, international reports, sanctions regimes and asset freezes ordered by the Federal Council. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureFrench, the language of law and business — overview and summary
For the Geneva financial centre, French is a language of law before it is a language of commerce. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureOne language, one legal tradition
Swiss law belongs to the family of civil law systems, founded on codes, of which the Civil Code of 1907 and the Code of Obligations of 1911, both revised since, form the pillars. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureLegal drafting: precision and nuance
The drafting of contracts, articles of association, wills, inheritance agreements, foundation deeds and regulations is one of the core professions of the financial centre. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureAdvice: understanding the client in his own language
Wealth, tax and legal advice rests on an understanding of the client’s situation: his family, his business, his plans, his fears. That understanding presupposes communication free of obstacles. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureLitigation and arbitration in French
The language of the proceedings determines access to justice and the quality of the debate. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureThe limits of the linguistic advantage
The advantage of French has its limits, which Geneva’s players must be aware of. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureThe French of finance: a vocabulary to be maintained
French has a complete financial vocabulary, forged over the centuries by French-speaking bankers, lawyers and economists and enriched by the terminological work of francophone institutions. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureSwiss legal French: particular features
The legal French of Switzerland has particular features that Geneva practitioners know and that their foreign counterparts must learn. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureFrench in the international organisations of Geneva
French is, together with English, one of the two working languages of the United Nations Secretariat and one of the official languages of most of the organisations established in Geneva. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureEnglish before the Swiss courts: the revision of the Code of Civil Procedure
The monopoly of the official languages before the Swiss state courts was breached, in a measured way, on 1 January 2025. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureThe language of contracts: choice, prevailing version and interpretation
The choice of a contract’s language is a legal decision before it is a matter of convenience. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureTranslating the law: certified translations, apostille and costs
The international circulation of Geneva documents passes through translation and legalisation. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureFrench and federal law: three authentic versions
Switzerland legislates in three languages. The acts published in the Official Compilation appear simultaneously in German, French and Italian, three versions that are equally authentic. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureThe French of the border: Geneva, neighbouring France and the cross-border workers
The language shared with neighbouring France shapes the labour market and the clientele of the financial centre. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureWriting to be read: plain French
The precision of legal French does not excuse a lack of clarity. For some twenty years the federal and cantonal administrations have applied principles of plain drafting: short sentences, a visible… Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureThe language of Geneva arbitration
International arbitration is the field in which the question of language arises with the greatest freedom for the financial centre. The parties choose the language of the proceedings; Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureChecklist: choosing the language of a document or of proceedings
Identify the native or working language of the client and of the client’s advisers, as well as the languages of the countries in which the document will take effect. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureThe Francophonie as a market — overview and summary
The French-speaking world is a market whose dimensions are rarely measured by financial actors, who are accustomed to thinking in terms of countries or regions. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureThe Francophonie in figures
The Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, founded in 1970, brings together 88 member states and governments, to which observers and associate members are added. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureThe geography of the French-speaking market
The French-speaking market is made up of several groupings whose profiles differ. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureThe segments relevant to Geneva
Within this market, several segments are of direct interest to the Geneva financial centre. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureDevelopments on the horizon to 2050
The French-speaking market will be profoundly transformed by 2050 under the effect of several developments. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureWhat the French-speaking market expects of Geneva
The French-speaking market expects of Geneva what the financial centre has always offered its clients: security, competence, discretion within the bounds of the law and a personal relationship. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureLuxembourg, Paris and Casablanca: the French-speaking competitors
Other French-speaking financial centres compete with Geneva. Luxembourg, whose official languages are Luxembourgish, French and German, has established itself as the leading European centre for… Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureMeasuring the financial centre’s French-speaking clientele
The share of French-speaking clients in Geneva wealth management escapes the public statistics, which record assets by the clients’ country of residence without distinguishing languages. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureThe franc zone: currency, parity and exchange-rate stability
The French-speaking market of West and Central Africa has a monetary particularity of direct interest to the Geneva financial centre. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureThe Maghreb: Casablanca, Algiers, Tunis
The Maghreb is the second pillar of the French-speaking African market. Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia have a combined population of nearly one hundred million, a substantial part of which uses French… Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureFrench-speaking Europe and Canada: Brussels, Luxembourg, Monaco, Montréal
The French-speaking market is not confined to Africa. Belgium, Luxembourg, Monaco and Québec form a set of clienteles and competitors that the Geneva financial centre knows well. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureMeasuring the flows: what the statistics do and do not say
Measuring the financial centre’s French-speaking clientele runs up against the absence of statistics by language. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureInstitutional Francophonie: summits, economic diplomacy and the Swiss presence
The Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, founded in 1970, brings together 93 member, associate and observer states and governments and holds a summit of heads of state and government every… Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureCountry risk in the francophone area
The francophone market also carries risks that a shared language does nothing to reduce. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureThe francophone diasporas in Switzerland
The francophone market is also present in Geneva itself. The diasporas from West Africa, the Maghreb, Lebanon and francophone Europe form communities of entrepreneurs, executives of international… Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureA positioning for Geneva in the francophone area
The elements gathered in this chapter make it possible to sketch a positioning. Geneva can lay claim to the role of reference financial centre of the francophone area for three functions: the wealth… Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureChecklist: assessing the potential of a francophone market
Measure the country’s French-speaking population, the extent to which French is used in business and public administration, and the linguistic trends. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureGeneva between French, English and German — overview and summary
Geneva is a French-speaking city in a predominantly German-speaking country, within a financial industry that is anglophone the world over. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureThe linguistic landscape of Geneva
The cantonal statistics draw a clear picture. Between 2020 and 2024, French remained the main language of 79 per cent of the canton’s inhabitants, down two points, followed by English, Portuguese and… Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureEnglish, the language of global finance
English is the language of global finance: the language of the markets, of financing contracts, of prospectuses, of rating agencies, of international regulators, of the major banks and of the trading… Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureGerman, the language of Swiss institutions
German is the language of the federal authorities, of FINMA, of the National Bank, of the majority of Parliament, of the large Zurich banks, of the national professional associations and of a… Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureThe tensions and how to manage them
The coexistence of the three languages creates tensions that the financial centre must manage. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureMultilingualism as an advantage
Geneva’s position between three languages, often experienced as a constraint, is an advantage that few financial centres possess. London and New York are monolingual; Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureLanguage within the institutions: observed practices
The linguistic practices of Geneva institutions vary according to their origin, their clientele and their culture. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureLanguage training and the schools
Language training is a matter of importance for the financial centre. Geneva’s state schools teach French, German from primary level and English, in accordance with the curricula of French-speaking… Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureThe legal framework of languages: Federal Constitution, Languages Act, Geneva Constitution
Swiss multilingualism rests on precise texts. The Federal Constitution lists four national languages, German, French, Italian and Romansh, and entrusts the cantons with determining their official… Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureZurich and Geneva: the linguistic division of Swiss finance
Swiss finance is divided between two main poles, separated by the language border. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureThe languages of the federal authorities and the courts
The relations of Geneva institutions with the federal authorities follow precise linguistic rules. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureThe languages of International Geneva
The international organisations established in Geneva add a linguistic layer of their own. The United Nations recognises six official languages, while its Secretariat works in English and French. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureRecruiting and training in three languages
The labour market of the financial centre reflects this situation. Job advertisements from Geneva banks, trading houses and law firms almost always require French and English, and list German as an… Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureThe umbrella organisations and the voice of the financial centre
The representation of the Geneva financial centre before the federal authorities and the public is channelled through umbrella organisations whose language reflects the geography of Swiss finance. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureThe languages of immigration: Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Arabic, Russian
Geneva’s linguistic landscape is not confined to the three languages examined so far. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureSubsidiaries of foreign groups: the language of head office and the language of the financial centre
A significant share of Geneva institutions belong to groups whose head office is in Zurich, Paris, London, New York or the Gulf. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureThe language of senior management
The training of the financial centre’s senior executives reflects the tensions described in this chapter. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureChecklist: defining the language policy of a Geneva institution
Determine the internal working languages and the languages of communication with clients, the authorities and the public, guaranteeing French for local relations. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureLanguage and the professions of the financial centre: drafting, advice, training, communication — overview and summary
The three preceding chapters have described French as the language of the law, as a market and as one of the three terms of a linguistic balance. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureThe drafting professions: notaries, lawyers, in-house counsel
Legal drafting is the first profession of language. In Geneva it is carried out by three professions. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureAdvice: the language of the relationship
Advice, the central profession of wealth management, is given in the client’s language. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureCompliance: reading and applying in several languages
Since the 1990s, compliance has become one of the most populous professions of the financial centre, and one of the most demanding in linguistic terms. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureTraining: universities, universities of applied sciences and institutes of the financial centre
Geneva trains the people of its financial centre in its own language. The University of Geneva has a faculty of law, a faculty of economics and management and a finance research institute. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureCommunication: press, publications and the image of the financial centre
A financial centre needs a press that understands and criticises it in its own language. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureTranslation and interpreting as infrastructure
Few financial centres have a faculty of translation and interpreting a few minutes from their banks. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureThe accounting and tax professions
Chartered accountants, fiduciaries and auditors form another group of professions in which language matters. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureLanguage technologies: assisted drafting and artificial intelligence
Generative artificial intelligence tools entered the professions of the financial centre from 2023 onwards. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureRare languages and the international clientele
The clientele of the financial centre speaks many languages other than French and English. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureCrisis communication in the language of the financial centre
The affairs that have marked the financial centre since the 1990s, traced in Parts E and H, have all had a communication dimension. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureLegal scholarship and the professional associations
The vitality of a professional language is measured by what is written and discussed in that language. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureMeasuring the linguistic asset
An asset that is not measured is not managed. Institutions can track a few simple indicators: the share of client relationships by language of the relationship, the corresponding share of assets, the… Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureMaintaining the language as an asset
The chapters of this part converge on one proposition: French is, for the Geneva financial centre, an asset in the same way as its legal stability, its international network or its expertise in… Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureConclusion of Part J
Part J has examined French from four angles: as the language of the law, as a market, as a linguistic balance and as a matter of the professions. Three conclusions emerge. Read more Geneva · The French language as infrastructureChecklist: maintaining the linguistic asset of a Geneva institution
Set out in writing the institution’s language policy: working languages, languages of client documentation, languages of relations with the authorities. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Crypto-assets and Digital Assets: from the DLT Act to tokenisation — overview and summary
Switzerland was one of the first states to give crypto assets and digital assets a complete legal framework. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Twenty years of crypto assets and digital assets in Switzerland
Although the first block of the Bitcoin chain was produced in January 2009, Switzerland became aware of the phenomenon only in the middle of the following decade. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035The Swiss framework: ledger-based securities, trading systems, bankruptcy
The ledger-based security (droit-valeur inscrit) is the central piece of the framework. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Geneva in the ecosystem: Taurus, private banks and tokenisation
Geneva is not the Crypto Valley and has not sought to be. Its contribution to the Swiss ecosystem of crypto assets and digital assets has come from private banking and its providers. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Stablecoins, payment tokens and tokenised deposits
The most debated question in 2026 is that of stablecoins, tokens whose value is pegged to an official currency and which serve as a means of payment and a store of value within the ecosystem of… Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Taxation and transparency: automatic exchange of information on crypto-assets
The end of banking secrecy, traced in Part E, finds its continuation in crypto-assets and digital assets. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Compliance: money laundering, sanctions and the travel rule
Crypto-assets and digital assets raise difficulties of their own in matters of money laundering and sanctions. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035The tokenisation of traditional assets: the infrastructure question
Beyond cryptocurrencies, which the Geneva financial centre has made no more than an ancillary activity, the issue of the decade is the tokenisation of traditional assets: shares, bonds, fund units,… Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Europe, the United States and the Swiss position
Switzerland does not regulate alone. In 2023 the European Union adopted a regulation on markets in crypto-assets, applicable in its entirety since the end of 2024, which creates a single… Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Custody: keys, segregation and liability
The custody of crypto-assets and digital assets is the business in which Geneva private banking has the most to contribute and the most to lose. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Practical questions for advisers
The Geneva adviser faced with a client’s request concerning crypto-assets and digital assets must answer four questions. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Utility tokens, foundations and issuances
Beyond cryptocurrencies and tokenised assets, since 2014 Switzerland has hosted foundations and companies that issue tokens intended to finance technology projects and to give access to services… Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035What 2035 might bring
Three developments appear probable over the coming decade. The first is normalisation: crypto-assets and digital assets will be one asset class among others, regulated, declared, held by ordinary… Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Checklist: integrating crypto-assets and digital assets into a Geneva institution
Define the institution’s strategy: simple access for clients, in-house custody and trading, issuance of tokenised assets, or a reasoned decision to abstain. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Sustainable finance: from the Protestant ethic to the Swiss Climate Scores — overview and summary
In some fifteen years, sustainable finance has moved from the margin to the centre. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Geneva origins
Part B described Calvin’s Geneva as a city in which the use of money was subject to moral judgement and collective discipline. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035The figures: CHF 1,881 billion
The scale of the phenomenon is measured by the annual market study of Swiss Sustainable Finance. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035The federal framework: transparency, Swiss Climate Scores, greenwashing
Switzerland has chosen a middle way between the detailed regulation of the European Union and abstention. The first pillar is corporate transparency. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Self-regulation by banks and asset managers
Self-regulation, as in the field of anti-money laundering since the 1977 Due Diligence Agreement described in Part E, is the financial centre’s instrument of choice. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035The European Union: detailed rules and simplification
The European Union has chosen the path of detailed regulation. The Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation, applicable since March 2021, classifies products according to their sustainability… Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Building Bridges and Geneva’s vocation
The Building Bridges summit was launched in 2019 by the Swiss public authorities, the financial community, the United Nations, non-governmental organisations and other international actors, and in… Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Commodity trading and the transition
Commodity trading, described in Part G, occupies a paradoxical position in sustainable finance. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Impact, philanthropy and blended finance
Impact investing, which aims at a measurable social or environmental effect in addition to a financial return, grew by 27 per cent in Switzerland in 2024. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Institutional investors: pension funds, insurers, foundations
Swiss sustainable finance is driven first and foremost by institutional investors, a significant proportion of whom are based in Geneva. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Prudential supervision of climate risks
Climate- and nature-related risks have entered prudential supervision. From 2021 FINMA required the large banks and insurers to disclose their climate-related financial risks, and it subsequently… Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Sustainable issuance: green, social and sustainability-linked bonds
The market for green, social and sustainability-linked bonds developed in Switzerland from the 2010s onwards, with issues by cantons, cities, cantonal banks, companies and, since 2022, the… Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035The Geneva houses: positioning
The major Geneva houses have made sustainability an element of their positioning, with differing emphases. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Measuring impact: methods, limits, verification
The credibility of sustainable finance depends on measurement. Exclusion approaches are easily verified. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Climate philanthropy and the Geneva foundations
Geneva is one of Europe’s capitals of foundations, and climate philanthropy has taken a growing place there. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035The international organisations and sustainable finance
International Geneva provides sustainable finance with its standards and its counterparts. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035The role of advisers: preferences, suitability, documentation
Sustainable finance has changed the daily work of the Geneva adviser. The Swiss Bankers Association’s self-regulation requires the adviser to ask each client whether they have sustainability… Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035What 2035 might bring
Three trends appear solid. The first is normalisation: sustainability will become an ordinary dimension of financial analysis, integrated into management and lending processes, with transparency… Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Checklist: offering sustainable investments without promising the undemonstrable
Define the sustainability approaches on offer, from exclusion to impact, and then describe them in terms the client understands. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Competition between financial centres: Dubai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Luxembourg, London — overview and summary
A financial centre is not measured against itself. It is measured against those that compete with it for its clients, its companies and its talent. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035The rankings and what they measure
The most frequently cited ranking is the Global Financial Centres Index, published twice a year. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Dubai: the centre that never sleeps
Within a decade, the United Arab Emirates, and Dubai in particular, have become Geneva’s most visible competitor, in commodity trading as much as in wealth management. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Singapore and Hong Kong: Asian wealth at home
Singapore and Hong Kong compete for Asian wealth. Their growth accounts for a large part of Switzerland’s relative decline. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Luxembourg: funds and the European passport
Luxembourg is Geneva’s most direct European competitor in wealth management and the only French-speaking centre of comparable rank. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035London and the Berne Agreement
London remains the leading financial centre in Europe and the second in the world, despite the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035The United States and Asia: innovation and capital
Beyond the competing centres in wealth management, two blocs weigh on Geneva’s future through their capacity for innovation and their depth of capital. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035What Geneva retains
The picture would be incomplete without an inventory of what Geneva retains and its competitors lack. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Competition within Switzerland: Zurich, Lugano, Basel
Competition between financial centres does not stop at national borders. Zurich, eleventh in the Global Financial Centres Index of March 2026, is seven places ahead of Geneva and concentrates the… Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Taxation compared
Taxation is the first argument of the competing centres. Here Geneva is both competitive and vulnerable. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035The cost of living and housing
The most tangible constraint on the Geneva financial centre is housing. The canton is among the most densely populated in Switzerland, and its territory is bounded by the border and the lake. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Reputation and scandals: a comparison
Reputation is an asset that each financial centre builds and loses in its own way. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Marketing a financial centre
The competing centres invest in their own promotion. Dubai, Singapore, Hong Kong and Luxembourg have promotion agencies with considerable budgets, delegations in the main capitals and targeted… Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035The competition for family offices
Family offices have become the most hotly contested prize among financial centres. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Foreign banks in Geneva: arriving, staying, leaving
The Geneva financial centre has always welcomed foreign banks, drawn by the international clientele and by Switzerland’s reputation. Part E described their decline since 2008. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035The forces at play on the horizon of 2035
Three movements will shape the decade. The first is geographical: global wealth will continue to grow faster in Asia, the Middle East and the emerging economies than in Europe, so that the financial… Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Checklist: positioning a Geneva institution against competing financial centres
Identify the markets in which Geneva retains an advantage of its own, European and French-speaking clients, complex families and commodity trading, and those in which a local presence is necessary,… Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Technology and artificial intelligence: the changing professions of the financial centre — overview and summary
Technology has always transformed Geneva’s finance: the bill of exchange of the fairs, the telegraph that linked Geneva to the European stock exchanges in the nineteenth century, the banking computer… Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035The state of play: a digitised financial centre without being a technological one
The Geneva financial centre has never been a technological centre and will not become one. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Artificial intelligence: uses and FINMA’s expectations
Generative artificial intelligence made its entry into Geneva’s institutions from 2023 onwards, first through individual uses and then through organised projects: document summaries, assisted… Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035The new infrastructures: instant payments, identity, open finance
Three new infrastructures are changing the environment of the financial centre. The first is instant payment. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Cybersecurity and operational resilience
Digitalisation has a counterpart: vulnerability. Financial institutions are the preferred targets of cyberattacks, whether by ransomware, phishing or the compromise of suppliers. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Digital sovereignty and the question of data
Technological dependence on a few foreign suppliers raises a question that the Geneva financial centre has known since the days of banking secrecy: that of the location and protection of client data. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Employment and skills: what automation changes
Artificial intelligence affects the substance of the financial centre’s professions, which raises the question of employment. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035The system providers: Temenos and the others
Geneva, a financial centre with little technology of its own, nevertheless hosts one of the world’s leading providers of banking software. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035The FlowBank case: digital banking without capital
Digitalisation does not exempt a bank from the prudential rules, as the Geneva financial centre learned in 2024. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035SIX and the Swiss infrastructures
The Geneva financial centre relies on national infrastructures headquartered in Zurich. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035The digital client relationship
The financial centre’s clients now expect a high-quality digital relationship in addition to the human one. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035The long term: cryptography and quantum computing
A longer-term question deserves mention. The security of payments, signatures and crypto and digital assets rests on cryptographic methods, some of which quantum computing could compromise if it… Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Data and regulatory reporting: the automation of compliance
Compliance is the area in which automation is advancing fastest, because its tasks are numerous, repetitive and documented. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Trading and data: satellites, models, platforms
Commodity trading is the business of the financial centre in which data has transformed practice most profoundly. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Digital skills: training the financial centre
The transformation described in this chapter calls for skills that the financial centre possesses only in part. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Project governance: what failures teach
Technology projects at financial institutions frequently fail. The Geneva centre has had its share of delayed system migrations, abandoned platforms and unused tools. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035What 2035 might bring
Three developments appear probable. The first is the general adoption of artificial intelligence assistants across all the professions of the financial centre, with governance imposed by FINMA and… Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Checklist: governing technology and artificial intelligence in a Geneva institution
Establish an inventory of artificial intelligence applications, classify them by risk and designate a responsible person for each, in accordance with FINMA Guidance 08/2024. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Geneva and the European Union: the 2026 package and the question of financial services — overview and summary
Geneva is a border city, and its financial centre lives with the European Union in a relationship that Part J described from the angle of language and Part E from that of the clientele. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035The Switzerland–EU package of 2026
The package for stabilising and developing relations between Switzerland and the European Union was initialled on 21 May 2025, approved by the Federal Council on 13 June 2025 and signed in Brussels… Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Financial services: access without an agreement
The absence of financial services from the 2026 package confirms a long-standing situation. Switzerland and the Union have never concluded an agreement on market access for financial services. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035What the Union requires and what Switzerland already applies
A substantial part of European financial law already applies in Switzerland, whether by choice of the legislature, by self-regulation or by commercial necessity. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Neighbouring France: cross-border workers, taxation and market
Within the Union, France occupies a place apart for Geneva, which Part J described from the angle of language. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035The open questions
Several questions will remain open once the 2026–2028 process has run its course. The first is that of an agreement on financial services, which Switzerland will continue to request and which the… Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Thirty-five years of relations: from 1992 to the 2026 package
The 2026 package forms part of a history that the Geneva financial centre has lived through at close quarters. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035European financial services law and its third-country regimes
European financial services law rests on the passport: an institution authorised in one member state may offer its services in all the others. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035From the taxation of savings to automatic exchange
The tax relationship between the Geneva financial centre and the Union has followed a path of its own. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Liechtenstein and the European Economic Area
A small neighbour of Switzerland offers the Geneva financial centre a gateway into the Union that Switzerland itself does not have. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035The Geneva subsidiaries in the Union
The large Geneva houses serve the Union through subsidiaries whose organisation illustrates the constraints described above. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035International Geneva and the Union
Relations between the Geneva financial centre and the European Union also run through International Geneva. The Union is one of the leading contributors to the organisations established in Geneva. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Cooperation in supervision
Financial market supervision knows no borders, and FINMA accordingly cooperates with the European authorities independently of political relations. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035The Union as de facto regulator
The Union’s influence on the Geneva financial centre also runs through channels other than the agreements. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Scenarios for 2035
Three scenarios are taking shape for the relationship between the Geneva financial centre and the Union. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Checklist: serving European clients from Geneva
Identify, for each Member State in which the institution has clients, the rules applicable to cross-border services and the exemptions available, and document the basis of each relationship. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Scenarios for 2035: what Geneva can become — overview and summary
This chapter brings together the developments described in the five preceding chapters. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035The variables: what the future of the financial centre depends on
Seven variables emerge from the analysis conducted in this book. The first is the geography of global wealth: cross-border wealth is growing faster in Asia and the Middle East than in Europe. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035First scenario: the specialised and connected financial centre
In the first scenario, the Geneva financial centre accepts its rank and consolidates it. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Second scenario: the eroded financial centre
In the second scenario, several variables move in an unfavourable direction at the same time. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Third scenario: the transformed financial centre
In the third scenario, less probable but possible, the Geneva financial centre draws on the technological and regulatory transformations to reinvent itself. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035What the scenarios mean for the professions
The scenarios have different consequences for the various professions of the financial centre. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Five crises of the financial centre and their lessons
The history recounted in this book offers five crises whose lessons shed light on the scenarios. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035A dashboard for the financial centre
The seventh robust decision, measurement, calls for an instrument. This book has repeatedly had to note the absence of data: on the language of client relationships, on Geneva’s share of sustainable… Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035What Geneva brings to the world
The scenarios reason from the point of view of the financial centre. It is useful to close with that of the world. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Disruptive shocks: geopolitics, sanctions, crisis
The scenarios presented assume gradual change, but the history of the financial centre shows that ruptures are possible. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035What the canton can decide
The scenarios depend to a large extent on federal and international decisions, but the canton of Geneva has levers of its own. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035What the Confederation can decide
The Confederation holds the principal levers: financial regulation and supervision, relations with the European Union and international agreements, federal taxation and double taxation treaties,… Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035A note on method
The scenarios presented here are constructions, and the reader is entitled to know their limits. They rest on seven variables chosen by the author, where other analysts would select a different list. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035The more distant horizons
Beyond 2035, a few longer-term trends deserve to be named. Europe’s population is ageing. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Weak signals to watch
Between the indicators of the dashboard and the disruptive shocks lie the weak signals, those events of limited scope that announce a change of trend. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Robust decisions
Some decisions are desirable in every scenario: these are the ones a prudent financial centre takes first. Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Conclusion of Part K and of the book
Part K has described six areas of work. The first concerns crypto-assets and digital assets, for which the Swiss framework is established and for which the tokenisation of traditional assets is the… Read more Geneva · Horizon 2035Checklist: preparing a Geneva institution for the scenarios of 2035
Identify the variables on which the institution depends, choose measurable indicators for each one and set warning thresholds. Read more Geneva · AppendicesChronology of the Geneva financial centre — overview and summary
The chronology that follows records the dates cited in the book, without claiming to be exhaustive. The dates before the nineteenth century are those of standard historiography; Read more Geneva · AppendicesFrom the origins to the Reformation
DateEventPart58 BCCaesar has the bridge at Geneva cut to halt the Helvetii; first written mention of the cityA5th centuryGeneva, capital of the Burgundian kingdomA1387Franchises (charter of… Read more Geneva · AppendicesFrom the Refuge to the Restoration
DateEventPart1685Revocation of the Edict of Nantes; second Huguenot RefugeC18th centuryRise of the Fabrique (watchmaking, jewellery) and of the Protestant banking networkC1707–1738First political… Read more Geneva · AppendicesThe nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth
DateEventPart1826Foundation of the Journal de GenèveJ1846Radical revolution of James FazyD1847Geneva constitution; demolition of the fortifications begunD1848Federal Constitution; Read more Geneva · AppendicesFrom 1945 to 2008
DateEventPart1956Arrival of Cargill in Geneva; Tradax subsidiaryG1970sRise of independent oil trading and of independent asset managersG, E1977Chiasso scandal; Read more Geneva · AppendicesFrom 2008 to 2026
DateEventPart2008Global financial crisis; rescue of UBSE18 February 2009UBS pays USD 780 million to the United States; Read more Geneva · AppendicesReading the chronology
Three observations emerge from this table. The first is the length of the cycles: three centuries pass between the heyday of the fairs and the birth of modern private banking, and nearly eighty years… Read more Geneva · AppendicesFrench-English-German glossary — overview and summary
The glossary gives, for the technical terms used in the book, their equivalents in English and German, the languages of global finance and of the federal institutions, together with a brief… Read more Geneva · AppendicesHistory and institutions
FrenchEnglishDeutschDefinitionAcadémieAcademyAkademieschool founded by Calvin in 1559, forerunner of the University of GenevaBanque protestanteProtestant banking networkProtestantische Banknetwork of… Read more Geneva · AppendicesBanking and wealth management
FrenchEnglishDeutschDefinitionActifs sous gestionassets under managementverwaltete Vermögenassets entrusted to an institution for management or adviceAvoirs en déshérencedormant assetsnachrichtenlose… Read more Geneva · AppendicesLaw and regulation
FrenchEnglishDeutschDefinitionActivité irréprochableproper business conductGewähr für einwandfreie Geschäftstätigkeitrequirement imposed on the managers of supervised… Read more Geneva · AppendicesTaxation
FrenchEnglishDeutschDefinitionConvention de double impositiondouble taxation treatyDoppelbesteuerungsabkommentreaty allocating taxing rights between two statesÉchange automatique de… Read more Geneva · AppendicesCommodity trading and trade finance
FrenchEnglishDeutschDefinitionAffrètementcharteringBefrachtunghiring of a vessel for transportCommerce de transitmerchantingTransithandelpurchase and sale of goods that never pass through… Read more Geneva · AppendicesCompliance and criminal law
FrenchEnglishDeutschDefinitionBlanchiment d’argentmoney launderingGeldwäschereiconcealment of the criminal origin of assetsBureau de communicationMoney Laundering Reporting OfficeMeldestelle für… Read more Geneva · AppendicesCrypto-assets and digital assets, technology
FrenchEnglishDeutschDefinitionChaîne de blocsblockchainBlockchaindistributed ledger organised in chained blocksContrat intelligentsmart contractSmart Contractprogram that automatically executes… Read more Geneva · AppendicesNotes on usage
FrenchEnglishDeutschDefinitionAlignement climatiqueclimate alignmentKlimaausrichtungcompatibility of a portfolio with a climate objectiveCritères ESGESG criteriaESG-Kriterienenvironmental, social and… Read more Geneva · AppendicesStatistical reference tables — overview and summary
The tables that follow bring together the principal figures cited in the book, with their reference date and their source. Read more Geneva · AppendicesThe Geneva financial centre
The data on the financial centre come mainly from the Fondation Genève Place Financière and its annual economic survey, as well as from the Office cantonal de la statistique (cantonal statistical… Read more Geneva · AppendicesCommodity trading
The amounts cited come from the press and from the official sources traced in Part E. Read more Geneva · AppendicesCompliance, sanctions and criminal liability
The figures come from the Money Laundering Reporting Office Switzerland, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs and the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland. Read more Geneva · AppendicesGeneva and Africa
The data come from the City of Geneva, the Office cantonal de la statistique (cantonal statistical office), swissinfo and the World Trade Organization. Read more Geneva · AppendicesLanguages and the Francophonie
The language data come from the Federal Statistical Office, the Office cantonal de la statistique (cantonal statistical office) and the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie. Read more Geneva · AppendicesCompetition between financial centres and cross-border wealth
The data come from the Boston Consulting Group and the Global Financial Centres Index. Read more Geneva · AppendicesSustainable finance, technology and European relations
The data come from Swiss Sustainable Finance, the Chambers guide to Swiss fintech, the press and the federal authorities. Read more Geneva · AppendicesPopular votes on relations with the European Union
The results come from the official chronology published by the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs. Read more Geneva · AppendicesNote on sources
The book has given priority to official sources, statistical offices, federal and cantonal authorities, international organisations and umbrella organisations, followed by the quality press and… Read more