A Dragon with Three Wings

Swiss subsidiaries of foreign banks have long been considered a thing of the past. Now, Banque Internationale à Luxembourg (BIL) is emerging with a bold 80 million Franc investment. With its Chinese majority shareholder, it is pressing for growth.

The Swiss banking sector has been going through rough times. One of the predominantly affected segments have been foreign banks (Auslandbanken), whose number collapsed from 122 in 2007 to 71 in 2019, according to the Swiss National Bank. One of those banks, Banque Internationale à Luxembourg (BIL), is now emerging with a bold 80-million-investment, an aggressive growth strategy and a new business model. Its parent company, BIL in Luxembourg, is owned to 90% by the Chinese investment firm Legend Holdings, which also holds a significant stake in the tech company Lonovo, and to 10% by the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.

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