Regaining loyalty in wealth management: an empirical behavioural inquiry in the Geneva private banking sector

The Geneva Private Banking sector has suffered two major shocks in the past five years. The financial crisis and the end of the Swiss banking secrecy have presented this highly sensitive area of service with a new challenge: how to regain their disillusioned customer’s faith. The time has come to reconsider what the client needs in terms of service in order to re-establish long term loyalty between banks and their clients. Using ethnomethodology as our research tool, we have been able to study behavioural issues involved in this relationship, as opposed to articulated and codified professional standards. Having interviewed sixty people, half of which are wealth managers, half of which are clients, we were able to make tangible the essence of this tacit knowledge leading to loyalty in private banking. The results of our research draw us to believe that service delivery primes over that of financial gain in terms of performance perceived by the client. The ultimate aim of our research is to provide insights into how behavioural aspects of the wealth management experience may be improved.