A Swiss private bank runs a special unit that helps a network of partner banks abroad offer Swiss private-banking services to their own customers. A small team of Relationship Managers sits at the centre of it, opening accounts, handling the day-to-day admin, and keeping communication flowing between the two sides. This partnership matters a great deal, yet no one had ever taken a close, evidence-based look at how well it actually works, what makes it good, or how digitalisation and AI might reshape the Relationship Manager's job in the years ahead.

To get a full picture, the study looked at the partnership from both sides. Partner banks answered a structured survey based on a well-established customer-satisfaction model, while internal Relationship Managers and their leaders took part in in-depth interviews. Each set of findings was first examined on its own and then placed side by side, to see clearly where the two sides agree and where they see things differently. A SWOT analysis brought everything together and turned it into a set of practical recommendations.

Both sides agree on what makes the partnership work: real trust and strong professional expertise, the two things rated most highly overall. They also point to the same two problems, that Relationship Managers can be hard to reach, especially by phone, and that the most complex account openings are handled less efficiently than standard cases, the weakest part of the whole collaboration. Where both sides see things the same way, the problem is clear and can be addressed with confidence. Where they differ, it is usually because partner banks only see the smooth result, while the team behind the scenes is doing a lot of manual work to get there. Staff also worry that admin is cutting into the time they should spend building relationships, and many see real promise in using AI for routine checks. From all of this, the study draws twelve concrete recommendations. The message is not to reinvent the partnership, but to rebalance it: automate the routine work both sides agree is inefficient, and put the freed-up time back into the personal relationships that made the collaboration valuable in the first place.