Banking licence & setup
Full advisory to obtain a banking licence: business case, regulatory engagement, capital structure, governance and launch plan.
Specialist advisory · Regulated banking · Zurich
Where banks get built.
Alpha 137 guides founders, investors and financial institutions through the full lifecycle of building a regulated bank - from strategy and licence, through core-banking selection, to live operations.
Start a conversationStrategyBusiness case, capital, positioning
LicenceRegulatory engagement and approval
PlatformCore-banking selection and build
Operating modelTeam, technology, partners, controls
LaunchGo-live and first years of operation
What we do
Four service lines. One accountable team, end to end.
Every engagement is led by principals who have done this before - not proposed it, but delivered it, from a blank sheet to a bank in production.
Core-banking transformation
Platform selection, vendor negotiation, implementation oversight and go-live management on leading Swiss and international core-banking systems.
Operating model & executive advisory
Designing the operating structure - team architecture, technology stack, third-party partnerships, regulatory operations and cost model - with interim COO or CTO support through critical phases.
Strategic banking programmes
Complex, multi-year mandates: digital-bank launches, bank integrations, wealth-platform builds and innovation programmes, each anchored in a commercial mandate.
Track record
Greenfield to live - twice, and counting.
Our principals have taken new banks from first regulatory conversation to customers transacting. Current mandates span Europe, the Middle East and the Gulf.
2 banks
20+ years
CHF 200M+
3 regions
How we work
Between the large consultancies and the solo practitioner.
Large firms bring process and junior teams. Individuals bring depth in one domain. Building a bank needs both breadth and hands-on experience - with someone accountable for the outcome.
- I
Principals only
The people who scope the work are the people who do it. No leverage model, no hand-off to a junior team.
- II
End-to-end accountability
One team from licence application through platform build to live operations - and still there after go-live.
- III
Operators, not observers
Our advice comes from having sat in the CEO's, COO's and programme director's chair, with a regulator across the table.
- IV
Independent
Project-based advisory. No proprietary capital, no balance-sheet interest, no vendor commissions - our only stake is a bank that opens on time.
Gal Bar Dea
Founder & CEO
- Background
- 20+ years in financial services
- Education
- MBA, Columbia Business School
- Based
- Zurich, Switzerland
Founder
Gal founded and led ONE ZERO, Israel's first fully digital bank and the first new banking licence granted there in fifty years, serving as its CEO from the application through more than six years of operation.
He then led the setup and launch of the first digital bank in the Balkans - the first new banking licence in that market in two decades - and now advises founding teams and investors on greenfield banks across Europe, the Middle East and the Gulf, including a private bank built on Swiss infrastructure.
Alpha 137 is the institutional form of that experience: a Zurich-based team, a standing bench of specialist practitioners, and a methodology for building banks that lives in the firm, not in one person.
Why Zurich
Rooted in Zurich's banking heritage. Building its digital future.
The counterparties a new bank depends on - platforms, custody, market infrastructure, external asset managers, regulators - sit within a few kilometres of our office.
Platforms & custody
Switzerland's core-banking and custody providers are headquartered in and around Zurich. Implementation and go-live are run on site, with their teams.
Distribution
Zurich and Zug hold the country's largest concentration of external asset managers - the channel through which new private banks reach clients.
Talent
The specialised banking-technology talent a durable team needs is trained and resident here. We hire in Zurich and develop local practitioners.
Contact
Building a bank? Let's talk.
We take on a small number of mandates at a time and respond personally to every enquiry.
gal@alpha137.ch