Best Private Bank in Switzerland Bank - Julius Baer

Bank Julius Baer, headed by CEO Boris Collardi, has triumphed on home soil against stiff competition from smaller local players and the larger, integrated global giants.

Part of the bank’s Swiss success has been down to a change in organisational structure, previously divided between French, German and Italian speaking regions, but now unified under a single boss.

Julius Baer prides itself as being the only Swiss bank, apart from market leaders Credit Suisse and UBS with a nationwide network. “It is no longer just Zurich and a few other places,” says bank spokesman Jan Vonder Muehll.

While the majority of the bank’s staff remain in Zurich, there are now 400 in Geneva – competing strongly with the likes of Lombard Odier and Pictet – 200 in Lugano and 100 in Basel, home territory of Sarasin.

Along with other banks, Baer is marketing a new-style ‘Edelweiss’ mandate to local customers, investing in Swiss-quoted blue-chip stocks such as Nestlé. The rationale here is that Switzerland has been a shelter from storms in the financial crisis, with the stability of local stocks increasingly appealing to private clients. YB