FINMA chairman Stefan Walter told participants at the regulator's small‑bank symposium in Bern that supervision in Switzerland follows a proportionality principle. He said the authority conducts over 40 onsite examinations of UBS annually, whereas a typical small bank receives an inspection roughly once every eight to ten years.
Walter emphasized that the frequency of checks depends on an institution's risk profile rather than its size. He cited the 2023 instability among U.S. regional banks as an example of how groups of smaller banks can pose systemic risks.
"We allocate supervisory resources where the risks are," Walter said, adding that banks with strong balance sheets can opt into the so‑called "small‑bank regime," which relieves them from calculating complex risk metrics. Currently, 56 institutions have chosen this regime.
The regulator's comments come amid broader scrutiny of large Swiss banks, with UBS highlighted as a focal point for supervisory activity.
