The Battle for the Future of Wealth

EFG International CEO Giorgio Pradelli will become President of the Swiss Bankers Association on 17 September 2026. I think his appointment comes at exactly the right moment.

Pradelli takes over at a time when Swiss banking is debating its future more intensely than it has for years. The collapse of Credit Suisse, the regulation of UBS and growing international competition have forced the industry to ask a fundamental question: what should Switzerland’s financial centre stand for in the next decade?

Wealth Management at the Center

What I find particularly interesting is Pradelli’s background. He has spent most of his career in global wealth and asset management. That matters because wealth management remains one of the areas where Switzerland still holds a genuinely global position.

Pradelli understands something that can easily be forgotten in domestic political debates: Switzerland competes for wealthy clients every day. Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai, London and the US are all strengthening their propositions. Wealth is increasingly mobile, and a reputation built over decades does not automatically guarantee future success.

Regulation Must Remain Proportionate

This is why his warnings about regulatory overreach are worth listening to. After Credit Suisse, stronger safeguards are clearly necessary. But the debate cannot simply be about tougher regulation. It must be about better regulation – rules that strengthen stability without unnecessarily weakening Switzerland’s competitiveness.

One of Pradelli’s biggest challenges will be ensuring that the future of Swiss banking does not become synonymous with the future regulation of UBS. The Swiss financial centre is much broader: private banks, cantonal banks, regional institutions, foreign banks, asset managers and independent wealth managers all form part of the ecosystem.

Quite a Statement That Shouldn’t Lead to Complacency

The timing of Pradelli’s appointment is particularly striking. Just before he takes office, assets under management at Swiss banks have exceeded 10 trillion francs for the first time, reaching 10.12 trillion francs in the first half of 2026. Part of that increase reflects rising markets, but the milestone remains remarkable.

Swiss banking is therefore not an industry in decline looking desperately for a new purpose. It remains one of the world’s most important centres for private wealth. But that position cannot be taken for granted.

For Pradelli, the real task may therefore be less about defending Swiss banking than about articulating what will keep it competitive for the next decade.

Ten 10 trillion francs shows how strong the starting position is. What Switzerland does with that advantage is the more important question.

For years, independent asset managers, aka external asset managers (EAMs), were often seen by private banks as uncomfortable competitors. They advised the same wealthy clients, controlled investment decisions and, in many cases, weakened the traditional banker’s grip on the relationship. I believe that view is rapidly becoming outdated.

The latest example comes from Deutsche Bank. It has created new senior positions for its Swiss Financial Intermediaries business, hiring Denny Pole from Julius Baer as Market Head FIM Switzerland alongside Weiwei Chen. Deutsche explicitly wants to expand the business across Europe and emerging markets.

Changes the Equation

There is a simple reason why banks are paying attention. Switzerland has around 1,300 EAMs managing more than 880 billion francs. Our recent WealthSummit study describes the sector as an important growth market and concludes that banks are increasingly becoming strategic partners to EAMs, particularly through technology, APIs and broader service offerings.

And Deutsche Bank is certainly not alone. Zurich private bank Maerki Baumann appointed Patrick Vogt as its new Head of External Asset Managers effective 1 September. Union Bancaire Privée (UBP), meanwhile, says its EAM business works with more than 200 counterparties and represents around 23 billion francs in assets.

Bank Move into the Background

This is where I see the more fundamental shift. The bank no longer necessarily needs to «own» the end-client relationship to make the relationship economically attractive. The EAM can remain the trusted adviser while the bank provides the infrastructure behind it: custody, execution, lending, foreign exchange, structured products, investment expertise, private markets and technology.

The investment in that infrastructure is becoming increasingly visible.

• Vontobel, for example, connects EAMs and their clients through its EAMNet platform, combining trading, reporting, research and structured products.

• Lombard Odier has around 70 professionals dedicated to EAMs across seven international locations and offers its own portfolio-management technology alongside custody, financing, wealth planning and investment solutions.

• Barclays Private Bank Switzerland has gone another route, introducing Wecan technology to digitalise onboarding, KYC and ongoing compliance for its EAM ecosystem.

Independence Becomes an Opportunity

I find this strategically fascinating because it turns an apparent weakness for the banks into an opportunity. If wealthy clients increasingly want independent advice, several banking relationships and open architecture, banks can either fight that development – or become the best platform on which it happens.

That may ultimately be where the real competition is heading. The winner will not necessarily be the bank that persuades an EAM’s client to return to the traditional private-banking model. It may be the bank that makes itself so useful to the independent adviser that the adviser chooses to bring more clients and more assets onto its platform.

New Battle for EAMs

In that sense, the growing competition for Swiss EAMs tells us something larger about private banking. Banks are beginning to accept that they do not always have to own the client relationship to participate profitably in it.

For independent wealth managers, that is good news. The more banks compete for their business, the more choice they gain in technology, investment access, financing and service. And for the banks, the supposedly independent competitor is becoming something rather different: a client, a distribution partner – and potentially one of their most valuable gateways to private wealth.

The contrast between the two financial centers is becoming increasingly clear:

• Switzerland still possesses enormous assets, expertise and international trust, but much of its agenda is defensive: capital requirements, regulation, cybersecurity, costs and consolidation.

• Singapore’s agenda is expansionary: attracting capital, firms and talent while building new structures around family offices, alternatives, AI and regional wealth.

• Switzerland remains stronger in accumulated cross-border wealth; Singapore appears more deliberate in positioning itself for newly created and newly mobile wealth.

For WealthSummit, the most promising question is therefore not simply whether Singapore can overtake Switzerland. It is: Why does Singapore currently appear to have a more coherent strategy for the future of wealth management – and what would a comparably ambitious Swiss strategy look like?

My answer is that Singapore currently has the more coherent strategy because it treats wealth management as a national growth industry. Switzerland still tends to treat it as an established strength that must primarily be protected and regulated.

Partners Group has become a revealing example of the pressures building in private markets.

The Zug-based investment manager Partners Group reported a 13 percent decline in first-half net profit to 502 million francs, while performance fees fell by 39 percent to 216 million francs. Some planned exits have been postponed until 2027.

The figures do not point to a collapse in demand. They reveal a more complicated imbalance: investors continue to allocate capital while existing clients seek to withdraw money from older products.

Diverging Expectations

The deeper issue extends beyond Partners Group. Banks and asset managers have spent years opening private equity, private credit and infrastructure to a broader group of wealthy individuals. This democratisation has created a large source of capital, but it has also brought together two different expectations.

Private-market assets require patience. Private clients may respond quickly to disappointing performance, uncertainty or changing liquidity needs. They may accept restrictions when investing but react differently when they discover that they cannot withdraw their money immediately.

Important Questions

For private banks and EAMs, this raises important questions about suitability and communication. Advisers must explain not only expected returns and diversification, but also how assets are valued, how quickly they can be sold and what happens when many investors want to exit simultaneously.

They must also consider liquidity across a client’s entire balance sheet. An allocation may appear reasonable in isolation but become problematic when combined with property, concentrated company holdings and other illiquid investments. This is particularly relevant for entrepreneurial families whose core business already represents a substantial illiquid asset.

Difficult Exits

Partners Group is not necessarily an outlier. It may simply be one of the first prominent firms to reveal what happens when the rapid expansion of private markets encounters a more demanding liquidity environment.

The lesson for wealth management is straightforward: access to private markets has become easier, but exiting them has not.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has opened a consultation on legislative amendments that would formally implement its regulatory framework for stablecoins.

Issuers seeking the designation “MAS-regulated stablecoin” would have to meet requirements covering reserve assets, capital, redemption at par, disclosure, stress testing and orderly wind-down planning. MAS is also considering the recognition of selected foreign-regulated stablecoins and arrangements involving issuers in several jurisdictions. The consultation closes on 16 October 2026.

In my view, Singapore is now moving beyond treating digital assets primarily as a speculative investment category. It is developing regulated stablecoins as potential settlement instruments for tokenised securities, funds and other financial assets.

Decisive Point

For wealth management, this could eventually change how portfolios are traded, settled and transferred across institutions and jurisdictions. Regulated stablecoins may provide the cash component of an increasingly tokenised investment infrastructure – particularly for private markets, where transactions remain expensive, slow and administratively complex.

The decisive point is trust. By reserving the “MAS-regulated” label for stablecoins meeting demanding standards, Singapore is attempting to separate institutionally credible digital money from the wider crypto market. This could make banks, family offices and professional investors more comfortable using blockchain-based financial infrastructure.

Shaping the Architecture

Singapore is therefore not merely regulating an existing market. It is trying to shape the architecture on which part of the future wealth-management industry may operate.