'Not Like Davos': European Bank Bosses 'Rub Shoulders' With VIPs at Secret Forum

The Institut International d’Etudes Bancaires, which was founded by four European lenders in 1950, prefers to keep mum on its agenda, while its members are advised against revealing details of the gatherings.

The Institut International d’Etudes Bancaires (International Institute for Banking Studies, or IIEB) remains Europe’s most secretive organization, where bank bosses "rub shoulders" with a whole array of VIP guests, such as central bankers, presidents, prime ministers and royalty, the Financial Times (FT) has reported.

"This is not like Davos, where anyone can buy their way in. This really is exclusive," an unnamed IIEB member told the FT, referring to annual meetings of the World Economic Forum in the Swiss town Davos.

Twice a year, the IIEB brings together the heads of Europe’s biggest banks who discuss a number of sensitive issues related to global policymaking at posh hotels and royal palaces across the continent. Notably, the organization has no website, with membership, agendas and minutes not made public. On top of that, members are reportedly discouraged from sharing details of the discussions.

Apart from being the influential financial forum, the IIEB reportedly remains an elite social club where the bankers and their partners enjoy "gala dinners, private tours of historic landmarks and high-end shopping trips."

The IIEB was founded in Paris in 1950 by the heads of four European lenders: France’s Credit Industriel et Commercial, Union Bank of Switzerland, Societe Generale de Belgique and Amsterdamsche Bank.

The initial goal was to bolster international capital movements and tackle currency controls amid greater interference from national governments in the financial system. The late 1990s, however, saw the IIEB talks focus on the impact of the euro, the growing derivatives market and M&A deals between big banks.

There has been almost no press coverage of the IIEB’s activities during its more than seven-decade history, aside from several meetings, including the latest one in October 2023, when more than 40 of Europe’s most powerful bankers gathered at the Dolder Grand Hotel in Zurich to discuss the collapse of the Credit Suisse lender with Swiss Finance Minister Karin Keller-Sutter and the country’s Central Bank Governor Tomas Ordano.

The FT, for its part, referred to the high-profile guests as "a staple of IIEB gatherings," recalling that in 2000 and in 2009, the forum was hosted by Prince Andrew at St James’s Palace and Buckingham Palace, respectively.

The club also once welcomed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at a gathering in Istanbul when he was still the country’s prime minister. The IIEB’s meeting in Russia took place in St Petersburg in 2013, with then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev addressing participants with a speech.