By Ariane Luthi<\/p>\n
ZURICH, May 4 (Reuters) – Swiss lawmakers want to decide swiftly on new capital rules for banking giant UBS as they kick off the debate on \u200cMonday into whether to stick with or soften the proposed regulations, parliamentary sources said.<\/p>\n
Up \u200cfor debate are the government’s proposal to make UBS fully back its foreign units with Common Equity Tier 1 (CET1) \u200bcapital, and a compromise pitch by lawmakers that could let it partly use less expensive Additional Tier 1 (AT1) capital instead.<\/p>\n
The concession aims to boost UBS’s competitiveness, but the government and academics say AT1 capital’s loss-absorbing capacity is too limited.<\/p>\n
Urged on by Finance Minister Karin Keller-Sutter, Switzerland is tightening regulations \u200cafter the collapse of Credit Suisse \u2060in 2023 left UBS as the country’s sole big global bank.<\/p>\n
UBS – which has criticised the regulatory plans as “extreme” – said last week its share buyback plans \u2060for 2026 depend on getting more clarity on the banking rules, which could mean it must find around $20 billion in additional core capital.<\/p>\n
A speedy ruling by the influential Economic Affairs and Taxation Committee on \u200bUBS’s \u200bkey capital requirements could move the item to parliament’s \u200bupper house in June, followed by \u200ca final decision in the lower house by autumn at the earliest.<\/p>\n
PARLIAMENTARY CHAMBERS DIVIDED ON UBS<\/p>\n
The upper house committee that will first debate the banking bill is widely seen as sympathetic to UBS’s argument that costly regulation will hurt its business and the economy.<\/p>\n
But the bank could face a tougher reception in the lower house committee and on the floor of parliament. Which \u200cside prevails will largely depend on lawmakers of centrist \u200bparties and moderates needed to build majorities.<\/p>\n
The leftist Social Democrats \u200band Greens, which back the government’s \u200btougher stance on UBS, together hold 11 of the upper house’s 46 seats, \u200cand 64 of the 200 lower house \u200bseats.<\/p>\n
The right-wing Swiss People’s \u200bParty (SVP) and the business-friendly Liberals (FDP), which are expected to broadly back softer rules, together hold 19 upper and 94 lower house seats.<\/p>\n
While some Centre Party and Green-Liberal lawmakers have \u200bvoiced support for UBS’s position, \u200cit is unclear how united the parties are, and how many in the FDP \u200bwill defy their party colleague Keller-Sutter over her plan for tougher rules.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by \u200bAriane LuthiEditing by Dave Graham and Susan Fenton)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Ariane Luthi ZURICH, May 4 (Reuters) – Swiss lawmakers want to decide swiftly on new capital rules…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59620,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[129],"tags":[19657,223],"class_list":{"0":"post-59619","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ubs","8":"tag-lawmakers","9":"tag-ubs"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116515064051254311","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}