Maerki Baumann

The core business of Maerki Baumann is investment advice and asset management, and the bank obtains standardized services from external partners instead of building them itself. Private clients can choose between a discretionary mandate, investment advice and a modular investment solution, which combines managed investment modules with individual advice. Pension advice, real estate advice and mortgages complete the offer, and entrepreneurs get a 1e pension solution for their company.

The bank runs separate private banking teams for clients in Switzerland and in Germany, the two countries where most of its client assets come from. The business magazine Bilanz gave Maerki Baumann first place in its private banking rating in 2017, 2021, 2022 and 2024. PricewaterhouseCoopers is the auditor of the bank and checks its annual accounts.

Maerki Baumann has bundled its crypto services under the ARCHIP brand since March 2024, five years after its crypto strategy began. Clients trade common digital assets in e-banking or the mobile banking app and exchange them against Swiss francs, euros, pounds or US dollars. The bank routes these orders through partners to the most liquid crypto exchanges. Depending on the coin, the bank keeps the assets in a segregated or an omnibus wallet, and like securities they stay outside the bank balance sheet if the bank fails.

Clients can also lock proof-of-stake coins for staking and receive the staking rewards. For managed portfolios, ARCHIP has two actively managed crypto products: the Crypto focus module from CHF 100,000 and the ARCHIP Crypto Certificate from CHF 10,000. The bank keeps Ethereum NFTs of the ERC-721 standard in custody as well. Because of German regulatory requirements, clients domiciled in Germany cannot use these crypto services, with the Crypto Certificate as the one exception.

Maerki Baumann has worked with independent asset managers for more than 25 years and acts as the custodian bank for the clients they manage. The offer for external asset managers covers global trading of securities, foreign exchange and precious metals, Lombard loans and mortgages, and the trading and custody of digital assets. An asset manager can therefore keep the bitcoin of a client at the same Swiss bank that holds the equity and bond portfolio of that client.

Patrick Vogt, who has advised external asset managers at the bank for almost 20 years, became Head External Asset Managers on 1 September 2026. The bank added crypto investment advice in March 2021, inside the advisory process it also uses for traditional assets. That process follows the investor protection rules of the Swiss Financial Services Act and of MiFID II.

Maerki Baumann opened its first business accounts for blockchain companies in April 2019 and oversaw their ICOs and STOs. The Tech Banking team now offers these companies accounts in the common fiat currencies, wallets for leading digital assets, staking, cards and financing rounds through ICOs, IEOs or STOs. Investor checks in line with regulatory requirements are part of the service, and the team also helps founders set up a new company. By October 2024 the bank served more than 500 tech corporate clients.

The Financial Services Regulatory Authority of ADGM, the international financial center of Abu Dhabi, approved a branch of Maerki Baumann in February 2026. This Middle East Hub works under the ARCHIP brand and serves Web3 and crypto companies in the Gulf region, while the Tech Banking department in Zurich provides the banking services. Andreas Fröhlicher, formerly head of legal and compliance at the bank, leads the branch.

Maerki Baumann & Co. AG appears as a bank in supervisory category 5 in the FINMA list of authorized banks and securities firms. FINMA approved the trading and custody of cryptocurrencies at the bank before the service started in June 2020 with bitcoin, bitcoin cash, ether, litecoin and XRP. Orders went through partner firms, mainly the transaction bank InCore Bank, to crypto brokers and exchanges.

Since 1 January 2025, a Technology Advisory Board has advised the Board of Directors and the Executive Board on technology strategy and the digitization of the business model. Marc P. Bernegger heads it, and its members are Alexander Ilic, co-founder of the ETH AI Center in Zurich, and the IT security entrepreneur Sandra Tobler.

The Zurich-based Syz family owns the private bank, and the siblings Hans G. Syz-Witmer and Carole Schmied-Syz together hold about 95 percent of the shares. Hans G. Syz-Witmer chairs the Board of Directors, and Carole Schmied-Syz is its vice-chair, in the second generation of the family.

Stephan A. Zwahlen has been the CEO of Maerki Baumann since February 2016, after joining the Executive Board in 2009. Lukas S. Risi is Deputy CEO and Head Private Banking, and Alexander Ising heads Corporate Services, which covers finance, banking operations and treasury.

On 30 June 2026 the bank managed CHF 13.3 billion in client assets with 111.1 full-time equivalent employees. Its Tier 1 capital ratio was 33.0 percent, and the profit for the first half of 2026 came to CHF 8.0 million.

ARCHIP is the brand for all blockchain and crypto services of Maerki Baumann, with its own website at archip.ch. ARCHIP Private serves private and institutional clients with custody, trading, staking, crypto advice and asset management, and ARCHIP Corporate serves blockchain and crypto companies.

Since June 2024 Maerki Baumann has worked with the Swiss crypto financial services firm Bitcoin Suisse in a Joint Crypto Advisory Board on its crypto investment products. The Blue Chip Digital Asset Index of STOXX, a subsidiary of Deutsche Börse, became the benchmark of the Crypto focus module and the ARCHIP Crypto Certificate, while clients of Bitcoin Suisse get access to private banking at Maerki Baumann.