But has anyone ever asked why industry leaders harp on about employees needing to adapt to constant change while they plead with governments for certainty?

Change is the new normal. For years, it has been a kind of warning call by impatient senior banking executives staring down hordes of employees at townhalls. It is rarely something that bubbles up from the depths of internal hierarchy.

It was once taken as an ephemeral element of corporate and banking culture. Something that reared its head when a business was being divested, sold, restructured – or just closed.

In other words, a nice, polite way of saying that cost cuts and constant redundancy exercises were going to be a permanent fixture in everyone’s future.

Now, as a long period of uncertainty related to the US elections ends, and with another Donald Trump victory looming on the horizon, many of those same executives are going to be sitting on the other side of the fence when it comes to ongoing – and new – discussions with regulators and governments.

By sharp contrast, they are the ones in a junior position as they plead for certainty, continuity and stability.

There is a certain dichotomy in that.

«The Double Take» is a new feature on finews.com that will be published regularly that comments on thematic issues affecting the Swiss banking hub.

Andrew Isbester, the author, spent almost two decades working for major Swiss and European financial institutions, working in a variety of functions including communications, financial reporting, business risk, and financial crime. He currently is an editor-at-large in the wider finews group.