The financial market of the Ticino region has been in the news this year, but not for the most auspicious of reasons – BSI's demise prompted a steady flow of negative stories. What is your opinion about this all?

Yes, the financial market of the Ticino was indeed in the news very often this year. Mostly for negative reasons, overshadowing the positive ones unfortunately. I hope this will change soon, for the sake of all those working in the Ticino.

Is Cornèr Bank able to profit in any way from the consolidation in the industry and disappearance of some rivals?

We have been looking for potential takeover candidates, to no avail. We didn't find anything that would have been a good fit. We're therefore continuing with our strategy.

How did you fare this year?

We've already had very strong internal growth over the past years, both in private banking and in the loans business. Assets under management increased 16 percent this year. The loans business added 13 percent. Overall, we are very satisfied. The results will be better than in 2015. And this is also thanks to the tireless efforts of our employees.

This is why at our traditional Christmas party we announced that all employees in Switzerland (almost 1,300) and our pensioners (190) would receive an extraordinary bonus of 2,500 Swiss francs – an unexpected Christmas present that was much appreciated by everybody.

The market conditions in banking worsened markedly with negative rates, tightened regulation, lower margins and a reluctance of customers to invest. Where are you able to grow and boost your profits?

We are convinced that the best way to grow is through continuous technological progress and innovative offerings, providing our customers with an added value. This will help us to acquire more customers. Until now, we've been most successful this way.

Are you going to expand in terms of personnel?

We are able to grow and launch new projects with our existing resources.

Still, we're planning to create 26 new positions in 2017.

You have a partnership with Saxo Bank, as well as with derivatives specialist Leonteq. How do you benefit from these cooperations?

We don't think that our role is to rediscover fintech. We therefore rely on the integration of third-party solutions. That way we are able to concentrate on our customers and at the same time offer state-of-the-art-solutions.

The feedback so far has been exceedingly positive and the results have surpassed our expectations by far.

With the introduction of Apple Pay you became a pioneer of digitization. What can we expect next?

Apple Pay is one of many innovations that we introduced with our pay cards over the past decades. More will come in the next 12 months. The introduction of Apple Pay made a lot of sense because the Swiss love to and do travel often. It is our goal to offer customers a global payment solution.

How important is the financial market of Ticino for the further development of Cornèr Bank?

This region is our home. We have here an interesting blend of efficiency and Southern spontaneity. In our work with the 200 employees north of Mount Gotthard, we see that the typical characteristics of the Ticino are much appreciated.

Ticino as a market might in the long term develop a problem as many decision centers disappear. This makes the recruitment of qualified personnel in accounting and risk management – functions of central importance to the management of a bank as a whole – increasingly difficult.

Add to that the taxation of companies and individuals, which by comparison is very unfavorable in the Ticino and which makes staying put in our region a not particularly attractive proposition. I would much welcome if politicians finally got round to do something about this, because otherwise we face the danger of an exodus.

Vittorio Cornaro, 44, has been CEO of Cornèr Bank since October. He used to be its executive vice president. Born in Lugano, he studied engineering at ETH Zurich and economics at University of St. Gallen. He started working as a trader at Merrill Lynch in London, where compatriot Sergio Ermotti also used to work.

Cornaro and Ermotti are close friends. In 2004, Cornaro returned to Switzerland and joined the family-owned company as a representative of the third generation. Ermotti incidentally started his career at Cornèr Bank in Lugano.