ZURICH — Switzerland’s finance minister said it was unlikely that UBS would leave its Swiss base after this week’s upper house parliamentary vote in favor of tougher capital rules.
Such a move would be more expensive than the new capital rules and legally complicated, Karin Keller-Sutter told CH Media after UBS Chairman Colm Kelleher last week warned that the bank could rethink its Swiss base if capital rules became too harsh.
UBS was dealt a blow on Wednesday when the upper house voted in favor of tougher capital rules that the bank estimates could require it to hold about $18 billion in additional capital.
Lawmakers supported a proposal that would require UBS to back its foreign units with 90-percent Common Equity Tier 1 (CET1) capital, rejecting a proposal favored by UBS for 50-percent CET1 capital and 50 percent Additional Tier 1 (AT1) capital, which is cheaper to hold.
Keller-Sutter said UBS “went all out,” probably having assumed it would get its way in parliament.
She said the Swiss government had already made some compromises with the bank, a notion UBS rejected in comments earlier this week.