Swiss perspectives in 10 languages

In banking, Switzerland can’t afford ‘model pupil syndrome’, says UBS CEO

UBS CEO Sergio Ermotti
Ermotti said fears that UBS would be the only major bank left able to dictate terms to Swiss businesses were unfounded. Keystone-SDA

For UBS Group CEO Sergio Ermotti, competition between banks in Switzerland will continue even following the takeover of rival Credit Suisse. He rejects calls for stricter regulation of the financial sector in Switzerland.

+ Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox

In an interview with Migros Magazine published on Monday, Ermotti said fears that UBS would be the only major bank left able to dictate terms to Swiss businesses were unfounded. “There are more than 200 domestic and foreign banks in Switzerland,” he said. “Competition is at play.”

The UBS boss also considers a general tightening of banking regulation to be dangerous: “We support many of the proposed measures, but they must be targeted and proportionate,” he said. Switzerland, added Ermotti, cannot afford to fall back into a “model pupil syndrome” and introduce rules that other countries do not have. This, he said, would weaken the domestic financial centre.

+ Swiss regulator tells UBS to strengthen its crisis plans

Ermotti believes that UBS is still on track in terms of integrating former rival Credit Suisse: “We are making good progress.” Credit Suisse clients are currently being added to the UBS platforms. However, delays in IT migration are currently the bank’s biggest challenge.

Translated from German with DeepL/gw

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.

If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, if you want to learn more about how we use technology, click here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to english@swissinfo.ch.

Coming soon Lost Cells A podcast uncovering the human stories behind private stem cell banking's promises and failures. Get notified

Popular Stories

Most Discussed

News

In compliance with the JTI standards

More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative

You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!

If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR