Delen Private Bank is exploring plans to establish a permanent presence in Zurich. This would be its second Swiss base, after Geneva.
The move is suggested by a job posting, in which the bank is seeking an experienced private banker with a professional network in and around Zurich. “You will have the opportunity to play a key role in the growth and development of our new office in Zurich,” the ad stated, with one of the responsibilities being “contributing to the commercial development of the company, particularly through regular attendance at events organized by clients.”
Delen Switzerland was founded in 1996 in Geneva. “We have also been present in Zurich for a year now, currently via a temporary location. We are exploring the possibility of opening a permanent office in Zurich, but no definitive location has been confirmed at this stage,” said the bank’s headquarters in Antwerp, which considers it too early to share further details about the plans.
Delen Private Bank operates in five countries: the Benelux, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland. The group does not publish separate figures for assets under management in Switzerland, instead including them with Luxembourg. Last year, the combined total for Luxembourg and Switzerland reached 2.7 billion euro, which is less than the Netherlands (3.4 billion euro) and only a fraction of the assets managed in Belgium (47.6 billion euro).
Belgian and Dutch clients
But the numbers don’t tell the full story. The Swiss division frequently works with colleagues from the Low Countries on cross-border estate planning and inheritance structures for Belgian and Dutch clients—often expats who have settled in Switzerland. The importance of this client base in Zurich is also reflected in the language requirements listed in the job ad: German is not essential, but Dutch and French are.
The strategy closely resembles that of Delen’s Dutch competitor Van Lanschot Kempen, whose Private Clients Switzerland division manages around 2.8 billion euro. “A significant number of wealthy Dutch and Belgian individuals live in Switzerland and prefer to be served by a bank that speaks their language and understands their culture,” Van Lanschot Kempen noted last fall.
Although the local Swiss market is crowded and highly competitive, Thierry De Groote, head of Delen Switzerland, stated in an earlier interview that he wants to raise awareness of the Belgian brand—starting around Lake Geneva. To that end, the bank is a jersey sponsor of two local youth hockey teams. Still, targeted acquisitions of local players—the same expansion strategy Delen has used in the Netherlands—are not off the table, according to De Groote, as a way to further grow the bank’s footprint in Switzerland.