01 · The challenge
Legal research within a regulated bank
The Legal, Tax & Compliance team at Bordier supports a bank that has earned the trust of its clients for five generations, under the leadership of the same founding families. Its work relies on federal and cantonal law, case law, soft law, legal doctrine, and regulatory texts such as FINMA circulars.
For a regulated institution, a high-performance research tool is not enough. Security, confidentiality, and source reliability are requirements for use, not preferences. General-purpose AI tools do not meet these standards.
For Bordier, the question was not whether AI could accelerate legal research. It was whether any AI platform could do so while complying with the requirements to which a Swiss private bank is held.
02 · The evaluation
Tested first, then deployed
Bordier did not start with a rollout, but with a trial.
The bank conducted an initial testing and validation phase before making any deployment decision. Silex’s security model was reviewed against Bordier’s internal validation requirements, in coordination with the bank’s IT and security departments.
Only after this phase did Bordier proceed with the deployment.
Silex has shown strong potential for improving the efficiency and quality of legal research in our daily work. For a regulated institution like ours, performance alone is not enough: security, confidentiality, and source reliability are essential. Silex meets these requirements in a way that is tailored to the needs of Swiss legal and compliance professionals.
Nicolas Terrier
Head of Legal, Tax & Compliance, Member of the Executive Committee, Bordier & Cie SCmA
03 · The solution
What Bordier validated
- Sources a bank can rely on.
Silex indexes over 800,000 Swiss and international legal sources: federal and cantonal law, case law, soft law, and doctrine. Regulatory texts such as FINMA circulars can be included in the search scope for relevant matters. - Answers that show their sources.
Silex is designed for professional legal research, not general conversation. Workflows are source-based and built for legal reasoning and traceability. A lawyer can see where an answer comes from before relying on it. - A security model the bank could approve.
Data is hosted and processed exclusively in Switzerland, with end-to-end encryption, in compliance with GDPR and the FADP. Safeguards protect professional secrecy. Under Silex’s security model, client data remains under Bordier’s control at all times, and Silex does not have access to it. Client data and documents are never used to train AI models. - A deployment that respects the bank’s processes.
Implementation is gradual, in coordination with Bordier’s IT and security departments, starting with several users from the Geneva team.
04 · Current status
A deployment designed to scale
Silex is now used within Bordier’s Legal, Tax & Compliance team in Geneva. Broader adoption will be evaluated as the team validates internal use cases through ongoing use.
Bordier is exactly the type of institution Silex was designed for: demanding, regulated, and deeply committed to the quality of legal work. Legal AI in financial services cannot rely on generic infrastructure. It requires structured Swiss legal sources, traceable reasoning, and a security model compatible with professional and regulatory obligations.
Kyriaki Bongard
Co-founder & CEO, Silex
05 · About
Bordier & Cie
Founded in 1844, Bordier & Cie SCmA is an independent Swiss private bank headquartered in Geneva, owned and managed by the fifth generation of its founding families. The bank is present in Switzerland through its offices in Geneva, Nyon, Lausanne, Bern, and Zurich, and internationally across Europe, Asia, and the Americas.