He is likely to roll back anything that manifests itself as being global. That is not great for the internationalists among us, but there is already a very clear upside.

Offshore hubs, many of which have been pummeled into submission in recent decades, particularly in the Caribbean, are apt to be breathing much easier as the OECD global tax reform is more than likely to go down the tube – and quickly.

No BVI

Although Switzerland can’t easily position itself anymore as this proto-continental BVI or anything like that, it is in stiff competition with other similar financial centers such as Singapore, and Dubai.

They aren’t purely offshore hubs, but they are also not one-stop major financial centers on par with a New York, London or a Hong Kong, currently the world’s three largest.

Benefit Disproportionally

Still, the medium-sized hubs are likely to benefit disproportionally from a large rollback in US banking regulation - and a freer environment for crypto investments and digital assets.

There is one catch. And that lies in individual tax rates. Dubai does not levy income tax at all while Singapore’s maximum tax rate on salaries is 24 percent, although the proportion taken out of average banking industry compensation more commonly lies between 15 to 20 percent.

Clear Disadvantage

Even Hong Kong, the world’s third largest financial center, only levies a maximum income tax rate of 17 percent.

In the city of Zurich, the maximum rate is currently about 41 percent while in Geneva it is a very French 48 percent, everything (municipal, cantonal, federal) very confusingly included - at least to the expat. Sure, you can move to neighboring jurisdictions and pay much less, but it is unlikely that overseas bank industry employees will want to do that, at least not immediately.

Direct Democracy

It is extremely hard to change this in a direct democracy but purely from the numbers, it looks like the Swiss financial center is going into the next four years with its hands tied behind its back, at least when it comes to attracting fresh talent from abroad to staff banks, fintechs, and digital asset providers.