Adrian Noesberger: «Communication was not good»

Switzerland is home to around 100 foreign financial institutions, all belonging to the Association of Foreign Banks in Switzerland. Its president Adrian Noesberger spoke to finews.tv about how recent events outside and within Switzerland affected the association's members. 

Foreign banks were already active in areas beyond wealth management before Credit Suisse collapsed. Now that the banking giant is disappearing, foreign banks see a huge opportunity in areas such as corporate banking, including lending.

Adrian Noesberger, who is also the CEO of Schroder Bank Switzerland, said that foreign banks were often ahead of their Swiss counterparts in freezing assets belonging to sanctioned Russians, as they had to do so in their home countries before Switzerland adopted European sanctions against Russia.  

In the past year and a half, both Russian sanctions and the collapse of Credit Suisse led to the association being contacted more frequently by the headquarters of foreign institutions, asking for clarity on the situation in the country. In certain situations, the government, other authorities and the banks themselves could have communicated better, Noesberger said.