What may lead to a loss of trust between Swiss family offices and Swiss financial institutions and how it may be restored.
Let us begin with a real-life case study right away.
A Swiss multi-family office service provider had been doing business with their Swiss «house bank» for around 20 years. This bank knew all the clients of the multi-family office and had the relevant documents on file as required by the Swiss Anti-Money Laundering Act.
In 2017, the stable and competent team was promoted to a higher position within the bank – and a new team was appointed without being briefed on the needs of the multi-family office. As a result, timeliness of services and open communication suffered. The new team at the bank did not recognise that these two trust antecedents would have a strong impact on their own trustworthiness and that of their employer.
And where did this lack of perceived competence, decisional authority of the new team, transparent communication, benevolence and timely service of the bank finally lead? Exactly, it resulted in the Swiss multi-family office authorising the transfer of all its clients’ financial assets and the closure of all accounts with this particular bank.
It does sound simple, even though the impact is strong: The bank missed the opportunity of implementing a trust restoration strategy. They simply «did not read the sign» when the multi-family office made its first complaint and no longer were the house bank of an important client relationship because of this important management error.
«The management of tension between the need for a timely response and the time to ensure due process is often underestimated and not communicated adequately to the client», says Dr. Roderik J. P. Strobl, Relationship Manager Key Clients of Leo Trust Switzerland.
At this point you might ask yourself how does restoring trust work? Where and when to begin – and where does it end? You’ll find some key insights in the article below (download).
This article is aimed at providing a general overview and summary of the issue. It is non-binding, and does not and should not be taken to constitute legal advice.
At Leo Trust’s special event, special investigator of the Kantonspolizei Zürich, Adrian Leuzinger, appeared in front of a «full house». The deputy head of the task force did not, of course, go into the tactical and technical procedures of the police, but nevertheless revealed a great deal.
Leo Trust Switzerland AG is a globally active financial services provider for 40 years, offering a variety of services for institutional and private clients. However, the business is changing. On the one hand, due to constantly changing regulatory standards and laws; on the other hand, due to digitalisation, globalisation and highly specific client expectations.
