The new Zurich office, which has a staff of three, will function as a representative office and as such it is not envisioned to grow much further in terms of headcount, a spokesperson for the firm told WealthBriefing.

MIG Bank first came into being as a specialist in online currency brokerage called MIG Investments in 2003, subsequently being granted a banking licence by the Swiss regulator, FINMA, in 2009. This year the firm obtained a Securities Dealer Licence.

Currently headquartered in Neuchâtel, but due to move to a Lausanne base in the spring, MIG Bank currently has 130 staff in total, and plans to add a further 40 before the end of next year.

Although a concept still relatively in its infancy, MIG Bank is not the sole online private bank to have been launched in recent times. For example, in the summer of last year BforBank, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Crédit Agricole, launched a full online private banking service for the French mass affluent market.

One trend often recognised as having been accelerated by the financial crisis is the desire by retail clients to have more control over their investments, possibly prompted by dissatisfaction with the performance of their investments at the time. This is aided by products and services which empower individual investors such as online brokerages, exchange-traded funds and the availability of research through the internet.