Switzerland will introduce new liquidity rules within weeks for its two major banks, which the Swiss regulator considers too big to fail, it said on Tuesday. Financial regulator FINMA said the new rules were needed to minimise the risk of state bailouts.
Tougher capital and liquidity requirements have been in the pipeline since Switzerland's biggest bank, UBS was bailed out by government aid in 2008 after writing down billions of Swiss francs in credit losses. Credit Suisse did not need state help in the crisis and both companies are currently among the best-capitalised banks in Europe.
"The liquidity regime only affects the two big banks at the moment and we assume that we will be able to introduce it definitively in coming weeks," said FINMA chief Patrick Raaflaub at the regulator's annual press conference. "Measures are needed that will protect the national and international financial system and the Swiss economy against the impact of systemically relevant banks failing, eliminating as far as possible the necessity for state bailouts," he said. Shares in Credit Suisse and UBS were down 1.0 percent and 0.2 percent, respectively at 1127 GMT, underperforming a 0.9 percent rise in STOXX European banks index.