Banking giant UBS was ordered Wednesday to set aside an extra $20 billion in safety reserves in Switzerland as the government there moves to tighten rules aimed at preventing another taxpayer-funded bailout like the 2023 Credit Suisse collapse.
Ministers want the Zurich-based lender to keep the new rainy day fund to cover any possible future losses in its extensive overseas operations.
Swiss authorities did not back down in their ask that UBS must keep enough cash on its books to fully fund all of its foreign subsidiaries, up from current rules that state they have 60% for those units now.
The blueprint insists UBS must fully back every dollar it invests overseas with the highest quality untouchable reserves in Switzerland to shield the Swiss economy from risks created by the bank’s giant global footprint.
Swiss finance minister Karin Keller-Sutter slapped down claims made by some activist shareholders that the changes could force the financial giant to move its headquarters to the US.
“If we get into a tricky situation with a bank of UBS’s size, how is Switzerland meant to handle that?” Keller-Sutter said, calling the US “a completely different market.”
She said the company’s balance sheet was at least 1.5 times larger than the Swiss economy, but insisted the new rules would not drive the firm out of the country.
“I see absolutely no reason in this regulation for a bank like UBS to leave Switzerland. None at all,” the former president of the Alpine nation adde, while noting that such threats from the company are “not new.”
The Post exclusively reported in September that its leadership had held talks with senior Trump administration offiicials about shifting its headquarters across the Atlantic.
“If the bank were to move to the US, its large Swiss business would be considered a foreign business in its home country and would likely face stricter capital requirements in Switzerland,” top Swiss business daily Neue Zuericher Zeitung wrote in an editorial late last year.
Any move abroad would also force UBS to surrender one of its main selling points: its safe-haven status as a Swiss bank that offers the highest level of privacy to wealthy clients.
Some concessions were made, including delaying the new rules until January 2027 and dropping a demand that would have forced UBS to hold cash to cover areas such as software and deferred tax breaks.
The Sergio Ermotti-led company still slammed the package as “extreme,” warning it could hurt jobs and investment.
“It lacks international alignment and disregards concerns expressed by the majority of respondents to the government’s consultations,” UBS said in a statement.
Chairman Colm Kelleher told shareholders at its annual meeting last week that the bank will review the rules and move to minimize the negative effects on its business, but insisted the plan was to have the firm to stay in Switzerland.
“Key business decisions may soon become unavoidable,” he warned.
UBS has been locked in a months-long fight with Swiss authorities over how much extra protection the bank must carry.
After orchestrating the Credit Suisse rescue three years ago, politicians in Switzerland vowed to end the era when a single bank could threaten the whole country’s economy.
Parliament is set to take up the foreign-operations rule starting May 4. Lawmakers could soften it, but Keller-Sutter warned that any big retreat would force the government to revisit the concessions already offered.
UBS claims the changes could even threaten Switzerland’s future as a major financial center.
A study the bank paid for last month estimated the new rules, which would kick in next year, could shrink the economy by as much as 3.9% over a decade.
