The CEO says UBS agrees with most of the stricter rules put forward by the Swiss government

by Paul Arnold

LUCERN, Switzerland (Reuters) – UBS agrees with the vast majority of measures proposed by the Swiss government last month to control banks, the lender’s chief executive Sergio Ermotti said on Thursday.

“We would say we share between 80 and 90 percent of these 22 measures,” Ermotti said during a speech at the Swiss Media Forum in the central city of Lucerne.

“There are a few points on which we disagree,” he added.

Last month, the Swiss government introduced 22 measures to supervise banks deemed “too big to fail” (TBTF) to protect the country from a repeat of the Credit Suisse collapse that broke out in 2023 and was taken over by UBS.

The release of the TBTF plan put pressure on UBS shares, which fell in the following weeks before rising after the bank announced better-than-expected results earlier this month.

The bank’s shares briefly rose above 28 Swiss francs ($30.63) per share on Thursday, above the level before the government’s TBTF report was released.

Among the measures taken by the TBTF was a plan to hit UBS, the country’s largest lender, with tighter capital requirements.

This may require setting aside an additional $15-25 billion, according to the country’s finance minister, which has caused concern among bank executives.

“Additional capital is the wrong solution,” UBS CEO Colm Kelleher said at the bank’s annual general meeting in April.

This month, the bank told investors it would maintain share repurchase plans for 2024, 2025 and 2026.

Still, Ermotti said the too-big-to-fail company had been “accepted.”

The government’s planned changes to banking regulations still have to go through a long political process before they are enshrined in law, so it is unlikely that they will come into force any time soon.

($1 = 0.9142 Swiss francs)

(Reporting by Paul Arnold; Editing by David Evans)