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Bank Audi review

Banque Audi (Suisse) SA

Two stars: a significant finding on the record, a recent adverse finding and no published fees.

Booking centreSwitzerland
RegulatorFINMA
Legal formLocally incorporated subsidiary
GroupBank Audi Group (Lebanon)
Websitebanqueaudisuisse.ch
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PPLI.com
Private Bank Rating
2 out of 5 stars
Editorial assessment on UHNW criteria
Reviewed 6 November 2026 · Q4 2026 edition
Updated every quarter
Rating signed byNoam CohenEditor, Bank Intelligence
About the rating
2 out of 5, Q4 2026 edition
Not publishedpricing on request
1matter on the record, 2024
Not publishedminimum relationship
The editor's opinion

Why Bank Audi has two stars

Bank Audi earns two stars. What holds the rating down: a significant regulatory finding stands on the record in the last ten years. The last adverse finding is recent. In its favour: remediation of past findings has been verified by the regulator. The file does not yet show the custody terms and whether external asset managers have a dedicated desk. Until they are on file, the rating cannot count them.

Noam Cohen, Editor, Bank IntelligenceReviewed 6 November 2026, Q4 2026 edition. The rating weighs the public record together with what clients and their advisers tell us in confidence; retail products, branches and apps play no part.

Where Bank Audi stands out

  • Remediation of past findings has been verified by the regulator.
  • Custody assets are protected by statute in the booking centre, with conditions a family should read.
  • Deposits are covered by a statutory protection scheme.
  • Ownership and control are fully public.
  • No politically exposed person holds a significant stake.

What to weigh

  • A significant regulatory finding stands on the record in the last ten years.
  • The last adverse finding is recent.
  • Only part of the private banking range is published for this booking unit.
  • No fee schedule is published; pricing is given on request.
  • An owner's home jurisdiction is under increased monitoring for money laundering.
  • The custody agreement is not public, so its terms could not be reviewed.

The rating expresses the opinion of PPLI.com on the date shown. It is not a statement of fact about the bank, not a credit rating, not a forecast of failure and not investment advice.

The record

Regulatory and legal record

What regulators, prosecutors and courts have decided, recorded against the legal entity they named, with the status, the amounts as published and a link to the original document. Claims and investigations still under way are marked as open.

202425 March 2024

FINMA enforcement concluded: serious breach of anti-money laundering obligations and duty to provide information (PEP funds, Lebanon)

FINMA found that Banque Audi (Suisse) SA breached its anti-money laundering obligations, failed to adequately establish the source of funds in high-risk relationships including a payment from a politically exposed person, did not report unexplained transactions to MROS and initially withheld an internal audit report from FINMA. FINMA ordered disgorgement of CHF 3.9 million, a capital surcharge of CHF 19 million, a two year ban on new PEP and high-risk corporate relationships, corrections to AML controls and an audit mandatary. No proceedings against individuals were opened. The release does not say whether the decision was appealed.

FINMA has ordered the disgorgement of profits totalling CHF 3.9 million and a capital surcharge of CHF 19 million.

Per FINMA: key staff replaced, compliance resources increased, several MROS reports filed, some clients dropped; audit mandatary to monitor implementation.

FINMAFinal decisionDisgorgement CHF 3.9 million; Capital surcharge CHF 19 millionPrimary source
Clients and standing

Client experience and financial standing

What clients meet at Bank Audi, read from complaint registers, ombudsman decisions and court records, independent reporting and what clients and their advisers tell PPLI.com in confidence. Announcements by the bank, awards and marketing material are left out.

UHNW client ratings

1.5 out of 5, based on 4 client ratings for this booking centre.

What clients report

The Swiss Banking Ombudsman publishes no figures by bank, so no complaints register shows numbers for Banque Audi (Suisse) SA, and the bank has no Trustpilot profile. The complaints that name the bank were filed by Accountability Now, Sherpa and Lebanese opposition groups over funds linked to former central bank governor Riad Salameh, not by its clients.

Worth raising with the bank

  • Ask whether the FINMA bar of March 2024 on new relationships with politically exposed persons and high-risk corporate clients has been lifted, and whether the audit mandatary has confirmed that the measures are fully in place.
  • Ask how the bank's capital and liquidity are ring-fenced from its Lebanese parent, Bank Audi S.A.L., whose Moody's deposit ratings stood at Caa3 and Ca when they were withdrawn in July 2020.

Financial standing

Credit ratings published by the agencies, dated by the latest agency or bank document that confirms them
AgencyRatingOutlookAs ofRated company
Moody'sCaa3 (local-currency deposits), Ca (foreign-currency deposits)WithdrawnJuly 2020Bank Audi S.A.L. (parent)

In the press

What it costs

What Bank Audi charges

Bank Audi does not publish its private banking fees. The site says that pricing is given on request. We searched its website on 6 November 2026 for a fee schedule, a tariff or a pricing page. We read its legal, documents and client information pages and searched the site in each language it uses. 96 of the 151 banks we cover publish theirs. A family cannot see what a relationship with Bank Audi would cost before asking, so the cost transparency element of the PPLI.com rating gives Bank Audi no credit for a published schedule, and the bank cannot be placed in our fee comparison. If Bank Audi publishes a schedule, we will read it and add it in the next edition.

Pricing not published

Banks that publish their fees, and how they compare, are listed on the comparison page. If you hold a proposal from Bank Audi, our editors can place it against the published fees of other banks in confidence: write to [email protected].

The bank at a glance

Identity, protection and services

Legal identity

Legal nameBanque Audi (Suisse) SA
LEI5493007VSDNRS3YF2A48
LicenceBank  Source
RegulatorFINMA
Legal formLocally incorporated subsidiary
OwnerBank Audi sal ()  Source

Ownership

Group parentBank Audi sal (listed, Beirut Stock Exchange (GDR programme via The Bank of New York Mellon))  Source
ControlWidely held; no shareholder with 10% or more  Source (31 March 2026)
Holder of 10% or moreFRH Investment Holding SAL (including its controlling shareholder), 13.81% in Bank Audi sal  Source (31 March 2026)
Holder of 10% or moreSheikh Dheyab Bin Zayed Bin Sultan Al-Nahyan, 10.09% in Bank Audi sal  Source (31 March 2026)
Disclosed holdings of 3% or moreAl-Hobayb Family 7.71%  Source (31 March 2026); Family of Late Sheikha Suad Hamad Al Saleh Al Homaizi 5.65%  Source (31 March 2026); Audi Family 5.52%  Source (31 March 2026); Akig Investment Holdings Ltd 4.26%  Source (31 March 2026); Phoenicia Enterprises S.A 3.37%  Source (31 March 2026); Al-Sabah Family 3.21%  Source (31 March 2026)

Ownership is shown as published, with its date. It describes who owns the bank; it does not, by itself, suggest any wrongdoing by the bank or its owners.

Financial strength, as reported

Credit ratingsMoody's Caa3 (local-currency deposits), Ca (foreign-currency deposits) (Bank Audi S.A.L. (parent))
CET1 ratio61.73% (31 Dec 2025)
Total assetsCHF 1.2 billion (31 Dec 2025)
Shareholders' equityCHF 228.3 million (31 Dec 2025)
Assets under managementCHF 4.4 billion (31 Dec 2025)
Net profitCHF 11.2 million (31 Dec 2025)
Employees121 (31 Dec 2025)
Founded1976

Figures for Banque Audi (Suisse) SA. Source: Annual Report 2025.

Services published for this booking unit

Private clients
Discretionary management
Advisory mandates
Custody only (execution and safekeeping)
Lombard lending
Mortgage lending
Multi currency accounts
Trust and fiduciary services
Family office services
Wealth planning
Consolidated reporting
External asset manager desk

Offered at this booking centreOffered by the group, not confirmed hereNot located, which does not mean unavailable
Checked on the bank's own pages, 6 November 2026.

Access and costs

Minimum relationshipNot published
US personsNot published
Fee scheduleNot published
Third party paymentsPublished  Source
Transfer out termsNot published

Protection of client assets

Deposit protectionAll banks with a Swiss office must be members of esisuisse: privileged deposits are protected up to CHF 100,000 per client per bank, including non-resident clients and foreign currency deposits, within a system cap.
Custody lawSwiss Banking Act art. 37d: custody assets held for clients are separated from the bankrupt bank's estate and handed over to the clients, with privileged deposits protected under arts. 37a and 37h.
Custody termsNot published

Before opening an account

  • Custody agreement. The applicable legal framework is set out above. Ask for the agreement that would govern your account and check how securities are titled, whether any sub-custodian is used, and when the bank may take a lien.
  • Cross-border eligibility. If a settlor, beneficiary or beneficial owner has U.S. ties, ask the named entity to confirm eligibility for your structure and which investment services it can provide.
  • Transferring assets out. Ask which positions can be transferred without selling them, who approves exceptions, and how charges are calculated for each position and market.
Your experience

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If you bank with Bank Audi or advise clients who do, your experience forms part of its PPLI.com rating. Every response is read by the editor and treated in strict confidence.

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Our commitment to confidentiality

Your name, email and telephone number are seen only by the PPLI.com editor. They are never published, never passed to Bank Audi or any other bank, and never used for marketing. We may contact you once to clarify your assessment. Once verified by our editors, your assessment can lead to a disclosed adjustment of this bank's PPLI.com rating. It is never published with your name.

Sources

All 13 documents cited on this page, by subject.

Regulatory and legal record

  1. FINMA: FINMA enforcement concluded: serious breach of anti-money laundering obligations and duty to provide information (PEP funds, Lebanon), 25 March 2024finma.ch

Client experience and press

  1. finews.com: Finma Cracks Down Hard on Lebanese Foreign Bank, 25 March 2024finews.com
  2. swissinfo.ch: Swiss financial watchdog fines Bank Audi for money-laundering violations, 25 March 2024swissinfo.ch
  3. L'Orient Today (citing Reuters): Swiss regulator investigates 12 banks in Lebanese central banker corruption case, 27 February 2023today.lorientlejour.com
  4. L'Orient Today: Swiss regulators asked to investigate three banks in connection to Salameh allegations, 24 February 2022today.lorientlejour.com
  5. Libnanews (citing Intelligence Online): After Riad Salame, Banque Audi and its managers also in the sights of French justice, 16 June 2021en.libnanews.com

Identity, ownership, finances and services

  1. FINMA: Bewilligungstraeger (PDF)finma.ch · Licence
  2. bankaudigroup.com: Shareholdersbankaudigroup.com · Group parent
  3. Bank Audi: Annual Report 2025banqueaudisuisse.ch · Financial strength
  4. Bank Audi: Aboutbanqueaudisuisse.ch · Services
  5. Bank Audi: Our servicesbanqueaudisuisse.ch · Services
  6. Bank Audi: Legal regulatorybanqueaudisuisse.ch · Third party payments

The bank

  1. Bank Audi, websitebanqueaudisuisse.ch

For Bank Audi

Before we publish a significant negative finding that is not already public, we give the bank the facts and time to comment, on the same timetable for every bank. Decisions of regulators and courts are shown as they were published. Corrections we verify are published with the date of the change. Write to [email protected] quoting reference BK-CH-BANQUE-AUDI-SUISSE-CCC274.

Reviewing this file with us

Families and their advisers read this file before they open an account. It can only be as complete as the documents we can find, and much of what sets a private bank apart, from its custody terms to the way a client team works, is rarely published.

If you represent Bank Audi, one of our Bank Intelligence analysts can go through the file with you: correct anything that is out of date, add terms and documents that are not yet public, and set out what has improved since our last edition. The review is a paid engagement for the analyst's time and research.

The rating itself stays with our editor and follows what the documents show, so we cannot promise a particular result. When a review changes the file, this page notes that the bank took part, with the date and what was added.

Speak to an analyst

About this file

Researched by the PPLI.com research desk from the public sources listed. The rating is our editorial opinion; read how we rate.

Important information. Editorial opinion of PPLI.com on the date shown, based on public information, client experience and editorial judgment. Not a statement of fact, a credit rating or investment, legal, tax or financial advice; verify with the bank and your own advisers before acting. No liability is accepted for reliance on this content. Bank names and logos are used for identification only. Ratings are updated every quarter. This is the Q4 2026 edition, and a rating can change between editions if something material happens. Full disclaimer
Rating signed by Noam Cohen, Editor, Bank IntelligenceReviewed 6 November 2026Methodology 2.4Reference BK-CH-BANQUE-AUDI-SUISSE-CCC274
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