Goldman Sachs, the U.S. investment bank, recently scaled down its presence in Switzerland. Now the company seems to plan a reversal of that trend.
Goldman Sachs is about to return to Geneva, Switzerland’s second-largest banking place. The New York-based company plans to open a representative office in the city, according to a report by «Bloomberg», which cited two unidentified sources.
The bank in March 2016 shut its Geneva bureau in favor of the Zurich bureau and in a bid to improve efficiency.
Long-Standing Presence in Zurich
Goldman Sachs has been present in Zurich since 1974. It offers trading facilities, advisory for mergers and acquisitions and private banking services. The bank has about 100 members of staff in Switzerland.
In the autumn of 2017, the talk was of an expansion of trading activities in Switzerland and an upgrade of the Zurich office into a branch. The bank filed applications to implement this plan as well as for the opening of an office in Geneva with Finma in Bern, the country’s banking regulator.
Finma and Goldman Sachs didn’t comment the report by «Bloomberg».
A Result of Mifid II
Goldman Sachs sees advantages of banking in Switzerland due to Mifid II, the European financial market regulation in place since the beginning of 2018. Mifid II seems to have put pressure on brokers in Switzerland and Goldman Sachs now eyes a place as market maker.
