Agency Houses and Exchange Banks: the comparison with Geneva

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Geneva and Singapore both owed their nineteenth-century financial development to the combination of partnerships and joint-stock banks. In Geneva, the private bankers organised as general or limited partnerships remained the core of the financial community, while the Radical government of James Fazy promoted the Banque de Genève in 1848 and the Caisse d’escompte in 1849.¹ In Singapore, the partnerships were the agency houses, which handled goods and customers, while the joint-stock banks were the exchange banks, chartered in London or Hong Kong. The Geneva bankers were citizens of the city and members of its political class. The partners of the Singapore houses were expatriates who expected to retire to Britain or Germany.

The division of labour also differed. Geneva’s private bankers specialised in managing the fortunes of wealthy families and in placing securities. Since the trade that passed through Geneva was modest, its banks were oriented towards capital markets in Paris and London. Singapore’s banks financed goods passing through the port. Their business was defined by the bill of lading and the bill of exchange. Wealth management came to Singapore much later, as Part D shows, while Geneva developed a commodity trading cluster only in the twentieth century.

In their modern form, however, the two cities converge. The Geneva volume describes the cluster of banks, inspection companies, shipbrokers, insurers and lawyers that serves the commodity trade in Geneva, although the goods rarely approach the city.² Singapore’s cluster is the direct descendant of the colonial service economy, with the difference that the goods did pass, and often still pass, through its port. The agency houses and exchange banks of Singapore thus anticipated a model that Geneva reached by another route.

Notes

1. Ressos, Genève, place financière internationale, partie D, chapitre II, citing the Dictionnaire historique de la Suisse, art. « Fazy, James »: Caisse hypothécaire (1847), Banque de Genève (1848), Caisse d’escompte (1849), Banque générale suisse de crédit international mobilier et foncier (1853). ↩
2. Ressos, Genève, place financière internationale, partie G, chapitre IV, « Le cluster genevois : banques, inspection, affrètement, assurance, droit », including the illustrative example of a copper cargo financed by documentary credit, inspected, chartered, insured and documented by Geneva firms without the copper ever approaching Geneva. ↩

For general information only. This article does not constitute legal or tax advice, does not replace advice on an individual case and creates no lawyer-client relationship. It reflects the legal position as of October 2026.