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The financial cities don’t currently have the feel they used to have and questions about advantages of individual financial markets become all the more pressing. There are reasons though why Swiss banking isn’t for the scrapyard yet.

The reports from across the globe are all fairly identical: things aren't how they used to be. Manhattan, the heart of the global financial market and home to Wall Street, is akin a ghost town, said James Altucher, a known blogger, in a much-read entry.

Many financial market professionals won’t ever return to their desks. Instead, they will work from home, which may be as far away as Arizona and communicate with colleagues via Zoom-calls.

Empty City, Empty Geneva

Reports from the City of London, Europe’s dominant financial market, are pretty similar. Employers are busy honing their concept papers for permanent home office, according to a report by the «Financial Times» (behind paywall). The newspaper of the financial elite frets of a city whose elegant shops, posh clubs, restaurants and busy cultural centers had to close down because its clients are gone.

Geneva is harboring similar concerns, with both big private banks, Pictet and Lombard Odier, planning to leave the city center permanently. In Zurich, Credit Suisse only yesterday published its plans to launch a digital bank, which will help it save on rent it now pays for posh inner-city offices.

No Banking Center, No Industry Policy

If there are no office, branches or staff, banking will change though. Promoting a financial market that has no physical existence is a very hard task – in Switzerland, only the well-known bank palaces on Paradeplatz and at Place de la Corraterie will remind of the grand bank’s dominance.

Of course, there is Swissness. The Swiss financial market is renowned for stability, quality and discretion. It attracts the most offshore money, while London has the capital market lead for Europe and Wall Street is home to the leading investment banks. Hong Kong and Singapore meanwhile are the trading hubs of an emerging Asian region.

Given a Choice Between Gafa and Alibaba

But digitization, which has received a major boost by the pandemic, will lead to the watering down of traits that have grown over time. Financial eco-systems won’t respect borders and the all-too-dominant tech industry is increasingly bipolar.

Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon in one corner and Alibaba, Ping An and Huawei in the other – the U.S. pitched against the Chinese.

Banks will probably have to decide which of the two they will align with. Even if it isn’t a great prospect to be either a Google- or an Alibaba-satellite.

What Is the Raison d’Être?

The Swiss financial market has to reevaluate the reasons for its existence. Their thoughts need to go beyond the short-term cost and revenue targets. This process is something that boards of directors and bank bosses should see as their key tasks.

finews.com suggests three ideas for what's at stake and what is possible – in keeping with what some experts voiced at a meeting of banking experts in Bern on Tuesday.