Roth says “positive signs” in banking sector
Jean-Pierre Roth, the president of the Swiss National Bank (SNB), has identified "positive signs" in the country's banking sector despite turbulent financial markets.
“We see that a bit of confidence is coming bank in the banking sector,” the head of Switzerland’s central bank told Saturday’s Neuen Zürcher Zeitung newspaper.
The country’s government and the SNB on October 16 provided Switzerland’s largest bank, UBS, with a bailout package worth SFr68 billion ($59 billion).
Roth called the overall economic situation “appreciably worse” despite the intervention of Swiss authorities but could not say whether the country would slip into a recession.
The SNB head also warned against overly rigid political interference into bankers’ salaries and bonuses, saying that that establishing a salary cap would be “unreasonable”.
“The danger is that talent, if not compensated at market rates, will move to banks abroad or to non-regulated institutions,” Roth argued.
“Exaggerations must be corrected but in line with other countries,” he added.
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