The domestic networks of international financial centres: Swiss wealth management banking in Japan

By integrating business history with financial geography, this article uses the case of Swiss banks in Japan to analyse the role of domestic financial networks and their interaction with global financial networks (GFNs) from the early 1980s onwards. While Japan has been characterised as a peripheral international financial centre where asset management developed for the domestic market, this article provides an original analytical lens, highlighting the financialisation of Japan’s financial system via the relation between core and non-core financial centres within a country and the development of Swiss banks in Japan. Based on wealth management as their core business the case of Swiss banks highlights how the money of rich individuals was concentrated in Tokyo and connected to global financial markets. Swiss banks’ wealth management business models evolved through three phases, to establish themselves within the Japanese banking system and with its clientele. First, during the 1980s–1990s Swiss banks established operations in Japan based on their relative strength in wealth management compared to Japanese institutions. Second, in the 2000s Swiss banks faced failures and needed to innovate drastically. Third, since the early 2010s they have reshaped business strategies and the division of work between Swiss and Japanese partners.