the world of private banking

58
THE WORLD OF PRIVAtE BANKING
However, unlike their counterparts at the Deutsche Bank, the private bankers
remained firmly in control: not only were they in a majority on the board of
directors, but no managing director was appointed until 1899, after the bank
had considerably expanded – and changed its name from Basler Bankverein
to Schweizerische Bankverein. Responsibilities were henceforth increasingly
delegated to professional managers, although a proper managing board was not
set up before 1929. 61 The Parisian haute banque remained equally in control of its
banque d’affaires, the Banque de l’Union Parisienne (BUP), even though it had
been founded with the Société Générale de Belgique in 1904, a full generation later
than the Swiss Bank Corporation. The board of directors included representatives
of the six founding private houses, the Société Générale, and the old Banque
Parisienne taken over by the new bank, as well as a few independent people. More
importantly, each of the founding private banks was represented on the board’s
management committee, a body which met twice a week and was responsible for
making the decisions concerning all aspects of the bank’s activities. Significantly,
the general manager was not in regular attendance at these meetings. 62
Beyond the differences between individual banks, there is the question of the
position of private bankers within their country’s corporate banking structures. In
all European countries, a fair proportion of the joint-stock banks’ senior executives
continued to be recruited from the world of private banking until well after the First
World War. As senior managerial positions became compatible with an upper-class
status, they attracted an increasing number of scions of old banking families who
brought to their bank a huge network of business relationships. However, English
private bankers were able to remain in a particularly strong position. On the one
hand, they adapted remarkably well to the new banking structures: over a third
of the directors of the country’s leading joint-stock banks were former private
bankers. Old private banking families were thus able to perpetuate themselves in
the big joint-stock banks, especially though by no means exclusively at Barclays
bank. On the other hand, the City aristocracy, still firmly entrenched in the world
of private banking, was able to retain a collective control over the financial
sector of the British economy through its massive presence on the boards of the
major joint-stock banks, overseas banks and insurance companies, as well as the
Court of Directors of the Bank of England. 63 Though parallels could be found
elsewhere, especially in Paris, such a control was deeper and wider than in any
other international financial centre.
61
Bauer, Société de Banque Suisse; Mazbouri, L’émergence de la place financière
suisse.
62
E. Bussière, ‘La politique financière de la Banque de l’Union Parisienne de 1919
à 1931’, Mémoire de maîtrise (University of Paris IV, 1977), pp. 253–69; H. Bonin, La
Banque de l’union parisienne (1874/1904–1974): Histoire de la deuxième grande banque
d’affaires française (Paris, 2001), pp. 18–43.
63
See Cassis, City Bankers.