🇨🇭Pictet, Lombard Odier, Mirabaud: Geneva Private Banks and FINMA

History

Geneva was already a banking centre in the eighteenth century: Protestant bankers managed the capital of the European aristocracy. Lombard Odier traces its history to 1796 and is considered the oldest private bank in Switzerland; Pictet was founded in 1805, Mirabaud in 1819. Historically these were partnerships with unlimited liability of the partners; on 1 January 2014 Pictet and Lombard Odier abandoned this form: the banks themselves became limited companies (SA), and the partners' ownership moved to a group holding organised as a société en commandite par actions—a partnership limited by shares. Mirabaud adopted the same model in 2014. Lombard Odier also left the Swiss Private Bankers Association, membership of which required the status of an unlimited partnership.

Concept

Pictet, Lombard Odier, and Mirabaud are the three oldest Swiss private banks headquartered in Geneva. All three are dedicated to pure wealth and asset management for affluent families: no retail banking, corporate lending, or in-house investment bank. The banks are owned by their managing partners—without external shareholders or a stock-market listing—which sets a long decision horizon and personal accountability for results.

All three are licensed and supervised by FINMA and belong to the Swiss deposit-guarantee scheme esisuisse: if a bank fails, deposits are reimbursed up to CHF 100,000 per depositor. After the 2023 reform the limit was retained while the funding of the system was strengthened: the banks' joint contribution obligation is 1.6% of all protected deposits (at least CHF 6 billion), at least half of it collateralised—CHF 8.1 billion for 1 July 2026 to 30 June 2027, on protected deposits of about CHF 506.3 billion at the end of 2025. A client's securities held in custody do not form part of the bank's balance sheet: on the bank's default they remain the client's property, and so are neither covered by the deposit scheme nor in need of it.

The partnership model is the key feature of the Geneva trio. Managing partners personally own the bank, run the same families for years, and answer with their reputation and their own capital—hence the conservative risk appetite and the long horizon. Since 2014 the partners no longer answer with their personal assets for the bank's own debts: the banks are limited companies, and the managing partners' unlimited liability sits at the level of the group holding, a société en commandite par actions (Mirabaud states this expressly for Mirabaud SCA); economically, a partner still risks their own money. The minimum meaningful entry threshold is from CHF 5 million; below this, banks usually decline or redirect to external managers. The Geneva houses publish no formal minimum: the CHF 5 million bar follows from Pictet's own description of its wealth-management client base — HNW and UHNW clients with between CHF 5 million and CHF 50 million in assets, with large families and single-family offices above that level, while Pictet Investment Office mandates start from CHF 100 million (Asian Private Banker interview with Marc Pictet, republished in Pictet corporate news, 28 February 2022). Lombard Odier and Mirabaud publish no comparable figure; Mirabaud, the smallest of the three, is the boutique option, and its entry level is confirmed with the bank.

Three Banks Compared

Partnership Format in Practice

What They Offer

• Discretionary and advisory portfolio management.
• Multi-currency custody.
• Lombard credit against the portfolio.
• Structured products and alternative investments through open architecture.
• Sustainable / ESG investing (especially Lombard Odier).
• Wealth planning and trust advisory.
• Art and collectibles advisory (for ultra-high-net-worth, UHNW, family offices).
• Multiple booking centres—Geneva, Zurich, London, Singapore, Hong Kong, Luxembourg, Dubai (depending on the bank).

When to Choose Which Bank

Where Geneva Private Banks Are Appropriate and Where Not

Regulation and Compliance

Swiss banking secrecy has long ceased to be absolute: since 2017 Switzerland has taken part in the automatic exchange of tax information (AEOI) under the CRS standard, so an account in Geneva is visible to the tax authority of the country where the client is a tax resident. FINMA licenses the bank and supervises anti-money-laundering rules; entry means intensive KYC and a documented Source of Wealth, especially for capital from sensitive jurisdictions.

Reputation and age grant no immunity from compliance risk. In September 2024 FINMA announced that, in enforcement proceedings concluded in June 2023, it had found Mirabaud & Cie SA to have seriously breached financial-market law by insufficiently verifying the economic background of client relationships and transactions, and confiscated CHF 12.7 million of unlawfully generated profits. Lombard Odier's case of aggravated money laundering (linked to Gulnara Karimova) reached the Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona: the trial opened in April 2026 and judgment was handed down on 27 July 2026 (case SK.2023.42). The court fined the bank CHF 3 million for failing to take the organisational measures required to prevent the money laundering (Art. 102 of the Swiss Criminal Code), gave a former relationship manager a 24-month suspended sentence for aggravated money laundering, and ordered the confiscation of more than CHF 400 million of assets in Switzerland. Proceedings against Karimova herself were discontinued: she is detained in Uzbekistan, and with no prospect of her appearing before the limitation period expires, no judgment could be given against her. The judgment is not final. The lesson for the client is simple: banks have markedly tightened their requirements for Source of Wealth and beneficial ownership.

Evolution and Today

Over two centuries the Geneva houses have lived through the end of banking secrecy, digitalisation, and a wave of consolidation in European private banking. The turning point was 2014: Pictet and Lombard Odier (and Mirabaud the same year) turned their banks into limited companies under a group holding organised as a société en commandite par actions—this simplified international expansion while keeping control in the partners' hands. Today the trio manages money from more than Geneva alone: booking centres in Zurich, London, Luxembourg, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Dubai allow them to serve Asian and Middle Eastern capital within the same structure.

The scale keeps growing: by the end of 2025 Pictet's assets under management or custody reached a record CHF 757 billion and Lombard Odier's client assets CHF 349 billion, while the boutique Mirabaud reported CHF 31.7 billion (CHF 32.3 billion a year earlier). In 2025 Lombard Odier opened a new headquarters in Geneva (the Bellevue district, designed by Herzog & de Meuron), bringing more than two thousand employees from six former offices under one roof. Compliance tightened in parallel: after Switzerland's move to CRS and a series of investigations, banks require a transparent Source of Wealth and a clear ownership structure. For capital of Russian origin, confirm the receiving entity’s residence criteria, the applicable sanctions and exceptions, and the required Source of Wealth evidence.

The trio's business model is resilient precisely because it is narrow: management and custody fees give predictable income without the market risk of an investment bank, while the absence of retail and corporate lending removes cyclical write-downs on bad debt. This is why the Geneva houses ride out the crises that batter universal banks. The price is a high entry threshold and an unhurried, in-person onboarding that the partnerships have no intention of simplifying for the sake of volume growth.