Switzerland has the capital. Where are the missing financing pathways?
Over the past few weeks, I have been examining several developments in Swiss finance that suggest a common structural weakness.
Credit has expanded, but an increasing share is secured. Domestic participation in larger Swiss growth rounds has declined. Primary equity issuance has become episodic, putting pressure on the specialist capabilities surrounding it.
Yet Switzerland has enormous financial resources and world-class expertise.
What seems to be missing is continuity in the mechanisms connecting capital with productive risk.
Consider the financing needs of companies ranging from CHF 1m to CHF 150m in annual revenue. How many genuinely independent financing options exist at each level, across different risk profiles and capital structures? Where do those options narrow, and how many economically viable opportunities remain unserved?
We have remarkably little visibility into these gaps.
Addressing them would require more than additional capital. It means developing specialist underwriting capacity across the corporate spectrum, supported by institutions with different investment horizons, return requirements and risk appetites.
It also means connecting those specialists to institutional savings, secondary liquidity and public markets capable of financing companies beyond their initial transactions.
These capabilities depend on one another. Repeated transactions build expertise and track records. Expertise attracts capital. Liquidity improves the economics of subsequent financing.
Market depth compounds through use. Its erosion can become equally self-reinforcing.
This is why isolated initiatives like a new fund, another investment vehicle or listing segment may struggle to change the underlying economics.
The opportunity is to identify where financing pathways break down and develop the complementary capabilities that would make those markets viable and sustainable.
Switzerland already has much of what is needed. The question is how to connect it more effectively, while rebuilding the depth that may have disappeared between established financing channels.
Perhaps the next frontier for Swiss finance is less about how much capital we manage and more about how many different risks we know how to finance.