The Swiss financial sector regulator, Finma, admitted this Sunday that it is considering holding Credit Suisse administrators responsible for the management errors that led to the bankruptcy of the bank.
“We are not a judicial authority, but we are exploring possibilities of accountability,” said Marlene Amstad, president of Finma, in an interview published today in the Swiss Sunday newspaper NZZ am Sonntag, in which she was very critical of the activity of the management of that bank.
Now, for Amstad, the capital and liquidity requirements of UBS – the financial institution that acquired Credit Suisse – must be increased gradually, to respond to fears that the size of the organization is disproportionate to its current commitments.
The acquisition of Credit Suisse by UBS came after the turmoil experienced by banks in the United States, which led investors to sell securities of institutions considered weak links in the banking system, such as Credit Suisse, which had accumulated problems for two years .
“The social media storm is obviously not the cause of Credit Suisse’s problems,” Amstad said, referring to the fact that Credit Suisse Chairman Axel Lehman accused the media of helping to bring down the bank.
“The problem is rooted in various scandals and management errors in recent years. The bank was already going through a crisis of reputation and trust,” said Amstad, who recalled that Credit Suisse’s problems were not limited to just one business sector, but “reflected a largely insufficient risk culture”.
The head of the Swiss financial sector regulator acknowledges that Credit Suisse has a very large number of employees who were doing their job seriously and correctly.
“At the end of the day, the bank went bankrupt due to many scandals and bad decisions made by management. The bank’s management stuck to a strategy that carried high risks for a long time, without being able to manage those risks properly,” Amstad analyzed. .
“A poor company culture and strategic misjudgments by management cannot be completely eliminated with strict regulation,” the Finman president concluded.
Source: TSF
