4matters on the record across its booking centres, 2015 to 2025
2.0/517 UHNW client ratings across its booking centres
The editor's opinion
Why EFG rates 2.4 out of 5
EFG rates 2.4 out of 5. The figure combines the ratings of its two rated booking centres (Switzerland, three stars; Singapore, two stars), each weighted by the number of UHNW client ratings it has received, so a centre where more families bank counts for more. Switzerland is the strongest at three stars; Singapore is the weakest at two stars. Its booking entities carry four matters on the record, the most recent in 2025; each is listed below with the centre it concerns. Across its booking centres, 17 UHNW client ratings average 2.0 out of 5.
Noam Cohen, Editor, Bank IntelligenceReviewed 6 November 2026, Q4 2026 edition. Each booking centre is rated on its own file, from the public record and what clients and their advisers tell us in confidence. The overall rating brings those ratings together; retail products, branches and apps play no part.
Where EFG stands out
Custody assets are protected by statute in the booking centre, with conditions a family should read. Switzerland
Deposits are covered by a statutory protection scheme. Switzerland
A dedicated desk serves external asset managers and family offices. All centres
Most fees are published. Switzerland
Ownership and control are fully public. All centres
The fee schedule is published in full, so a family can price the relationship before asking. Singapore
No politically exposed person holds a significant stake. Singapore
What to weigh
One matter is still open with the authorities and not decided. It carries no weight in the rating until it is decided. All centres
Serious adverse findings against this licence holder in the last ten years. All centres
The last adverse finding is very recent. All centres
Only a summary of the custody terms is public. Switzerland
Only part of the private banking range is published for this booking unit. Switzerland
The bank has not shown publicly that the failings behind past findings were put right. All centres
Deposit protection is minimal. Singapore
Few private banking services are published for this booking unit. Singapore
Switzerland · EFG Bank AG6 client ratings · 35% of the weight
Singapore · EFG Bank AG, Singapore Branch11 client ratings · 65% of the weight
PPLI.com rating, weighted across the centres2.4
Each booking centre keeps its own rating, set on its own file. The overall rating is the average of those ratings, weighted by the number of UHNW client ratings each centre has received. A centre whose rating is still in preparation is shown but not counted.
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 booking centres
EFG in 2 booking centres
Each booking centre is a separate legal entity, with its own licence, deposit protection, services and fees, and keeps its own PPLI.com rating. Everything on file for them is brought together on this page; open a centre for its own file.
What regulators, prosecutors and courts have decided against the booking entities of EFG, gathered from the files of all its booking centres, with the status, the amounts as published and a link to the original document. Each entry names the centre it concerns. Claims and investigations still under way are marked as open.
202511 December 2025
Reprimand and fine for bond due diligence, record-keeping and reporting failures
The Securities and Futures Commission, in a joint release with the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, reprimanded EFG Bank AG and fined it HKD 10.85 million. Between January 2015 and December 2020 the bank failed to account for special features of 322 bonds in its product due diligence, kept no due diligence records for 141 bonds, and did not report the failures at once after suspecting them in July 2020. The bank self-reported, cooperated, and will apply enhanced complaint handling for 351 affected products.
Claim against Mirabaud and two former partners linked to the Kuwaiti pension fund case
Bilanz reported on 6 June 2025 that EFG had filed a claim in a British court against Mirabaud and its former partners Pierre Mirabaud and Thierry Fauchier-Magnan, in connection with the proceedings brought by Kuwait's Public Institution for Social Security. Both sides described the claim as a procedural step, and no ruling on it has been reported.
Penalty for customer due diligence and monitoring failures under Hong Kong anti-money laundering law
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority found that EFG Bank AG, Hong Kong Branch had control deficiencies in due diligence on customers transferred from another financial institution between 21 February 2016 and 16 January 2018, and in onboarding and ongoing due diligence for other customers between 1 April 2012 and 31 October 2018. It imposed a pecuniary penalty of HKD 16 million for failing to maintain effective due diligence and monitoring procedures. The remedial measures the bank had already taken were considered in setting the penalty.
Swiss Bank Program Category 2 non-prosecution agreement
EFG Bank European Financial Group SA, Geneva, and EFG Bank AG entered a joint Swiss Bank Program non-prosecution agreement. The US Department of Justice said that until 2013 EFG ran a US cross-border business that helped US clients hide accounts and income, with 919 US-related accounts since August 2008; the combined penalty was USD 29.988 million.
Matters concerning other entities in the group (2)
202510 October 2025
Censure and fine for anti-money laundering programme failures at a US broker-dealer
According to FX News Group on 10 October 2025, FINRA censured EFG Capital International Corp., the Miami broker-dealer and a sister company of the bank, and fined it USD 650,000 under FINRA Rules 3310(a) and 2010. The conduct ran from 2018 through 2021.
Shown for context only: the decision concerns EFG Capital International Corp, not EFG Bank AG, and does not count towards the rating of the booking centre or of the group.
BSI 1MDB case: disgorgement of profits reassessed from CHF 95 million to CHF 70 million
After the Federal Administrative Court in November 2019 upheld FINMA's finding of serious supervisory law violations at BSI but rejected its profit calculation, FINMA ordered CHF 70 million confiscated instead of the original CHF 95 million and stated the case was closed. BSI's Swiss business had been integrated into EFG Bank AG in 2017; the release does not name EFG Bank AG.
respondent (predecessor business BSI)
an amount of CHF 70 million be confiscated instead of the original CHF 95 million
From the file of: Switzerland · EFG Bank AGFINMA (reassessment after Federal Administrative Court judgment)Final decisionDisgorgement originally ordered (2016) CHF 95 million; Disgorgement after reassessment CHF 70 million; Amount vacated CHF 25 millionPrimary source
Clients and standing
Client experience and financial standing
What clients meet at EFG across its booking centres, 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
2.0 out of 5, based on 17 client ratings across its booking centres.
Switzerland3.0 out of 56 ratings
Singapore1.4 out of 511 ratings
What clients report
Switzerland. The largest client claim was brought by Kuwait's Public Institution for Social Security in a UK court, with EFG among the defendants. EFG International booked a CHF 59.5 million provision for it in its 2025 results and on 23 September 2026 announced a final settlement costing about CHF 5 million beyond that provision. In Hong Kong, the December 2025 SFC decision commits the bank to enhanced complaint handling for clients of 351 affected bond products.
Singapore. FIDReC handles complaints against banks in Singapore but publishes no register of decisions by firm. The branch's Singapore cases arise from a USD 199.7 million loan facility linked to the Taiwanese insurer Singfor Life, in which the courts ruled for the bank between 2017 and 2022, including the Court of Appeal's dismissal of an appeal by Singfor Life's former chairman in October 2018. In Hong Kong, the SFC and the HKMA reprimanded and fined the same legal entity HKD 10.85 million in December 2025 for product due diligence, record-keeping and reporting failures.
Worth raising with the bank
Switzerland. Ask whether any bond you hold through the bank in Hong Kong is among the 351 products covered by the enhanced complaint handling set out in the December 2025 SFC decision.
Switzerland. Ask what CET1 ratio the bank reports after the Cité Gestion purchase and the Kuwaiti pension fund settlement, given Moody's negative outlook on EFG International since March 2026.
Singapore. Ask whether the product due diligence failures for which the SFC and the HKMA fined the bank in December 2025 involved products also sold to Singapore clients, and what has changed since.
Financial standing
Credit ratings published by the agencies for the companies named in the centre files, dated by the latest agency or bank document that confirms them
Agency
Rating
Outlook
As of
Rated company
Fitch
A / F1
Stable
October 2025
EFG Bank AG
Moody's
A3 (long-term issuer rating)
Negative
March 2026
EFG International (parent)
In the press
ShareCafe (Sharecafe Team; no wire service credited)
EFG International reached a final settlement with Kuwait's Public Institution for Social Security, at a cost of about CHF 5 million beyond its provisions.
Moody's changed the outlook on EFG International's A3 rating to negative from stable, citing acquisitions, capital distributions and one-off legal provisions.
Luxembourg judicial authorities searched EFG Bank (Luxembourg) on 24 February 2026 in a preliminary inquiry into suspected money laundering and breaches of counter-terrorist financing obligations.
EFG completed its purchase of the Geneva private bank Cité Gestion, with about CHF 7.5 billion of managed assets and 150 staff, and expected its CET1 ratio to fall by about 100 basis points.
The High Court on 12 November 2021 upheld the bank's charge over about USD 194.57 million of cash against the claim of the Taiwanese insurer Singfor Life, despite finding the arrangement illegal under Taiwanese law.
What it costs
What EFG charges, centre by centre
Fees are set by each booking entity, so they are shown centre by centre. Two of the two centres of EFG publish a fee schedule, read on 6 November 2026 from the documents linked under each table. To compare banks fairly we put every published fee in US dollars at the same indicative rates and apply it to the same reference amounts, then rate each fee against the average of the other banks that publish it. Five stars is the lowest fee, one star the highest. Terms a family actually negotiates are often different, and a bank can change its schedule at any time.
The published fees side by side
Fee
Switzerland
Singapore
Other banks
Custody and safekeepingeffective rate on USD 25 million
0.25% a year
0.25% a year
0.30% a yearaverage of 38 other banks
Discretionary mandateeffective rate on USD 12.5 million, balanced profile
1.75% a year
1.75% a year
1.21% a yearaverage of 25 other banks
Advisory mandateeffective rate on USD 12.5 million
1.50% a year
1.50% a year
0.90% a yearaverage of 21 other banks
Equity tradecommission on a USD 250,000 trade, major exchange
1.50%
1.00%
0.79%average of 47 other banks
Bond tradecommission on a USD 500,000 trade
2.00%
2.00%
0.92%average of 42 other banks
Third party fund subscriptionfee on a USD 250,000 subscription
3.00%
3.00%
1.34%average of 42 other banks
Currency conversionmargin on a USD 1 million spot conversion
1.50%
1.50%
0.69%average of 30 other banks
Account maintenanceper year
USD 10,000 a year
Not in the schedule
USD 939 a yearaverage of 26 other banks
Outgoing international transferper transfer, standard
USD 60
USD 60
USD 57average of 61 other banks
Transfer of securities to another bankper position
Outgoing transfers of securities 6 0.1% of the market value of each security
USD 150
USD 125average of 38 other banks
Closing the accountone off
USD 1,000
USD 1,000
USD 698average of 21 other banks
Lombard loan marginmargin over the reference rate
4% per annum above the corresponding prevailing cost of funds of the Bank
plus a spread of up to 2.5% per annum or as separately agreed
Not compared
Minimum annual feeper year, or fee below the asset threshold
Not in the schedule
USD 2,000 a year
USD 4,399 a yearaverage of 38 other banks
Each fee is rated against the average of the other banks that publish it: five stars is the lowest, one star the highest. The schedules, their dates and what each leaves out are listed centre by centre below.
Singapore · EFG Bank AG, Singapore BranchCentre file
The reference relationship, at EFG Singapore's list prices
USD 281,250 a year
112 basis points for custody and a discretionary mandate (custody USD 62,500, discretionary mandate USD 218,750)
With the trades, conversions and transfers of the reference year added at list price: about USD 512,690 a year, 205 basis points.
against 22 other banks on custody and mandate fees
Price level of the published fees11 fees compared with the other banks that publish them
Not in the published schedule: account maintenance.
Third party payments. The schedule states: “may receive rebates and/or trailer fees as compensation; may amount up to an annualised rate at 2% of the AUM”
Scale of charges, Singapore Branch, October 2024, read on 6 November 2026. Earlier version, same entity; superseded by doc 0. Discretionary fee was up to 1.5% p.a. in this version. Not used for figures.
How the comparison works: USD 25 million booked with the bank: half under a discretionary balanced mandate, half in custody with advice; 24 equity trades of USD 250,000 and 8 bond trades of USD 500,000 a year; 6 currency conversions of USD 1 million; 24 outgoing international transfers. Tiered fees are applied to those amounts tranche by tranche, stated minimums are applied, and amounts are converted at indicative rates of 2026-11-06. Read how we compare fees.
The bank at a glance
Identity, protection and services
Ownership
Group parentEFG International AG (listed, SIX) Source
ControlLatsis family interests (via EFG Bank European Financial Group SA), 45.8%; family owned Source (31 December 2025)
Holder of 10% or moreEFG Bank European Financial Group SA, 45.8% in EFG International AG Source (31 December 2025)
Holder of 10% or moreLatsis family interests, 45.8% in EFG International AG (indirectly, through EFG Bank European Financial Group SA) Source (31 December 2025)
Holder of 10% or moreBTGP-BSI Limited (subsidiary of Banco BTG Pactual SA, listed on B3), 13.3% in EFG International AG Source (31 December 2025)
Disclosed holdings of 3% or moreThe Capital Group Companies, Inc 3.3% Source (31 December 2025); Belleview SA (beneficial owner: Boris Collardi) 3.3% Source (31 December 2025)
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.
Booking entities
SwitzerlandEFG Bank AGFINMA · Locally incorporated subsidiary · LEI 549300TBS2M2ML45V909Licence: Bank Source
SingaporeEFG Bank AG, Singapore BranchMAS · Branch of EFG Bank AG · LEI 549300TBS2M2ML45V909Licence: Wholesale Bank; also Exempt Capital Markets Services Entity and Exempt Financial Adviser Source
Financial strength, as reported
Credit ratingsFitch A / F1; Moody's A3 (long-term issuer rating) (EFG International (parent))
Offered at one or more booking centresOffered by the group, not confirmed at a centreNot located, which does not mean unavailable Checked on the bank's own pages for each centre.
Access and costs
Minimum relationshipSwitzerland:Not published Singapore:Not published
US personsSwitzerland: Not published Singapore: Not published
Fee scheduleSwitzerland: Published, Jan 2026 (Version [Jan 2026]); file name says Effective 15 January 2026 SourceCompared below Singapore: Published, Version Jan 2026; file name says Effective 15 January 2026 SourceCompared below
Third party paymentsSwitzerland: Published Source Singapore: Published Source
Transfer out termsSwitzerland: Not published Singapore: Not published
Protection of client assets
Deposit protectionSwitzerland: All 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. Singapore: Wholesale banks and merchant banks are not members of the SDIC Deposit Insurance Scheme, so deposits booked here carry no Singapore deposit insurance. Only eligible Singapore-dollar deposits are insured; deposits in US dollars or other currencies are not covered.
Custody lawSwitzerland: Swiss 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. Singapore: Not published
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.
Reporting to the family office. The bank lists a desk for external asset managers. Ask for a sample statement or data export and confirm whether it includes positions, transactions, accrued income and all currencies held.
Currency conversion. The fee comparison shows a published maximum of 1.50% for the reference FX transaction. Ask for the spread on your usual currency pairs and trade sizes, with the benchmark rate named in the quote. See published fees. Switzerland
Exit costs. The fee comparison shows USD 150 per position for a securities transfer. Ask what rate would apply to your mandate and whether the receiving bank or a sub-custodian would charge separately. See published fees. Singapore
Your experience
Rate EFG
If you bank with EFG in any of its booking centres, or advise clients who do, your experience forms part of its PPLI.com rating. Please say which centre you deal with. Every response is read by the editor and treated in strict confidence.
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 the reference of the booking centre concerned: Switzerland BK-CH-EFG-37404E; Singapore BK-SG-EFG-SG-B9F741.
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 EFG, 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.
Brought together by the PPLI.com research desk from the files of its booking centres and the public sources listed. The rating is our editorial opinion; read how the overall rating is built.
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 2.4Overall rating weighted by UHNW client ratings
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