UBS boss rejects stricter capital requirements

UBS: Ermotti reiterates no to stricter capital requirements Keystone-SDA

UBS CEO Sergio Ermotti has again spoken out against the idea of requiring the bank to have more capital.

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“The current capital requirements are good,” he said at a conference organised yesterday in Zurich by the periodical Finanz und Wirtschaft (FuW).

UBS was able to save Credit Suisse, Ermotti argued. This proved the institution’s capital strength and the fact that Swiss regulation is good enough, if implemented correctly: however, this was not the case for CS, which was granted exemptions by the supervisory authority.

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According to the Ticino manager, such a thing should not happen again and the focus should be on capital quality. At the same time, however, Switzerland also wants a strong financial centre: the requirements should therefore not make it impossible for UBS to be competitive.

At the political level, among other things, there are discussions about whether systemically important banks should be required to hold up to 100% equity capital for their foreign subsidiaries, compared to UBS’s current 60%. The idea is “absolutely excessive,” Ermotti argued. It makes no sense “to say that our foreign holdings are worthless.”

The US, UK and Europe are all going in a different direction, thhe added: perhaps there will not be a huge deregulation, but there certainly will not be a move toward more regulation. The timing is also not ideal for tightening the screws, given the “not so rosy” macroeconomic outlook.

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Ermotti went on to reiterate his attachment to the Swiss headquarters: the bank wants to succeed starting in the federal government, he said in response to a question about whether stricter capital requirements could push UBS abroad.

“Part of our success is our Swissness,” he said. And about the collapse of CS and its acquisition by UBS: “We have a great opportunity to turn a tragedy into something good.”

Translated from Italian by DeepL/mga

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