UBS Quitting Switzerland Would Be ‘Bad News,’ Top Geneva Banker Warns
(Bloomberg) — Should UBS Group AG leave Switzerland or merge with another foreign bank it would be “clearly bad news” for the country and its banking sector, a top Geneva banker warned.
“We need a headquarters in Switzerland, we need a bank that represents Switzerland” like UBS, Denis Pittet, the chairman of the Fondation Geneve Place Financiere banking association told reporters on Tuesday.
Speculation about the possibility of UBS quitting Switzerland has intensified after the upper parliament in September backed a plan that would force the nation’s largest bank to substantially increase the amount of equity capital it holds at home.
The co-CEO of smaller Zurich rival Vontobel Holding earlier this month told Bloomberg Television how the departure of UBS would represent the “loss” of a major brand. Pittet is also a managing partner at Lombard Odier Group, which competes with UBS in private banking and asset management.
Pittet said that he’s “not in the mind nor in the shoes” of UBS to be able to say how realistic a departure could be but said he hoped Switzerland’s parliament could offer a solution that the bank can live with.
Switzerland “shouldn’t inflict competitive disadvantages” on its banks that “that would weaken them on the international stage,” Pittet added.
Earlier in his prepared remarks, he cited a study commissioned by the foundation that showed that just 27% of Swiss polled today believed the country’s banks are more competitive than their international rivals. A decade ago, that figure stood at 54%.
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