Staff at the Zurich offices of Société Générale are worried. Rumors about a closure of the branch abound. Are the bankers right to be concerned?
The new year didn’t come peacefully at the Zurich bureau of French bank Société Générale. There’s a fair degree of uncertainty due to rumors about a potential closure of the branch, sources told finews.com. The banking staff association has already been involved to mediate between employees and the management.
Here’s how it all began: SocGen informed Zurich-based employees at year-end about possible cuts, the sources said. It wouldn’t be the first closure of a branch in Switzerland. The French banking giant in 2016 shuttered the Lausanne office, cut some of the jobs and moved others to Geneva.
Last year, the bank said that it intended to invest in Swiss private banking in Zurich and Geneva. Zurich bureau chief Tobias Wagner (pictured above) hired more than a dozen bankers in the second half of 2017.
SocGen restructured its private banking business having pulled out of Asia and designated Switzerland as a key market, Jean-François Mazaud, head of private banking at SocGen, told finews.ch-TV last year.
Doesn't Ring True
The worry over a pullout are misplaced, finews.com has learned: the changes being considered for Zurich aren't a closure, but rather potential new offices. The private bank, which is housed at Talstrasse, could move IT staff to cheaper Zurich real estate.
«The analysis is in its preliminary stages, nothing has been decided so that no further details can be provided,» a spokeswoman for SocGen confirmed. She said the bank's Swiss wealth management strategy, based on locations in Zurich and Geneva, still holds.
The number of staff which would be affected by a local IT move is more than a dozen. But SocGen seems to have hit a roadblock: key staff could resign due to a change in location, hence the bank has put the move on ice and is talking to staff.
