What is the ambition of Northern Trust in Switzerland over time? There have been a number of milestones in our Swiss journey, the most visible being when we established our first office in Switzerland in Basel back in October 2017, following our acquisition of the fund administration units of UBS Asset Management. How has Northern Trust’s asset servicing business in Switzerland evolved to-date? While it may not be glamorous, asset servicing is a very important part of the financial system that everyone relies on, and we can provide stability for institutional investors with platforms that are global, stable and secure. "We have a significant client franchise which includes some of the world’s most sophisticated asset managers" Our reputation depends on our reliability and resilience and these come to the fore in difficult environments such as the current pandemic, where business resiliency plans have been put to the test. As a company, we invest approximately USD 3.4 billion in technology over rolling three-year periods, and in recent years we’ve undertaken an ambitious digitisation effort across all our business lines. Instead, we take a highly focused approach to ensure the services – asset servicing, asset management and wealth management – we provide are relevant to our target clients. We’re not an organisation that aims to be all things to all clients. "We’ve undertaken an ambitious digitisation effort across all our business lines" Very much aligned with Swiss corporate values, our vision is to be our clients’ most trusted financial partner and this is what our focus is on. As featured in Finews Interview, 12 October 2020 Northern Trust has been servicing large Swiss institutional investors for almost 30 years, why does it feel as if the firm is still so unknown in Switzerland?Īs a 131-year-old global financial institution with USD 12.1 trillion of assets under custody/administration and USD 1.3 trillion assets under management (as of 30 th June 2020), we are by reputation and culture a conservative, tightly-managed institution underpinned by a fortress balance sheet and count a diversified workforce as one of our strongest assets.