The Financial Times (FT), one of the world’s leading business publications, wrote about the “secret club” of Europe’s top bankers.
A report published on Monday claimed that executives of major European banks organize secret meetings twice a year in luxury hotels and royal palaces.
Drawing attention to the Institut International d’Etudes Bancaires (IIEB – Institute for International Banking Studies), the news article stated that this organization is little known outside its members, does not have a website and its meeting schedules are not made public.
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“It’s not like Davos, where anyone can buy a ticket,” one longtime member told the FT. It’s a really privileged place.”
It was also claimed that club members were advised not to share the details of what was discussed in the meetings.
Some members complain about the lack of transparency in the group.
Par Boman, chairman of the Swedish bank Handelsbanken, told the FT: “We were members for decades when the organization served the goal of bringing banks in Europe closer together. But in the wake of the financial crisis, we felt that the group’s excesses and lack of transparency were not in line with our values.”
It was stated in the news report that IIEB was founded in Paris in 1950 by 4 leading European banks. These banks were Crédit Industriel et Commercial, Union Bank of Switzerland, Société Générale de Belgique and Amsterdamsche Bank.
According to the report, the IIEB functioned as an elite social club as well as a platform for Europe’s top financiers to exchange ideas. The meetings, which stretched over three days, also brought together the bankers’ wives, who spent time at gala dinners, sightseeing trips and shopping tours.
The FT also noted that, 70 years after its founding, the IIEB’s activities are almost never in the media spotlight
