Switzerland's upper chamber, the Ständerat, voted on Thursday to take up a proposal for stricter capital requirements for the country's largest bank, UBS. The chamber rejected a motion by member Andrea Caroni to refer the matter to the federal government, marking a preliminary win for regulators.
The Federal Council has put forward a package aimed at preventing a repeat of the 2023 Credit Suisse collapse and its subsequent takeover by UBS. The government's draft would impose roughly $20 billion in additional core‑capital requirements on UBS, a figure the bank says would curb its ability to fund growth and pay dividends to shareholders.
UBS has publicly opposed the proposal, arguing that the extra capital buffer would limit resources for investment and shareholder returns. In response, the Senate's Economic and Taxation Committee forwarded a considerably softer counter‑proposal to the government at the end of August. Both the government's plan and the committee's alternative are expected to be debated by the Ständerat in the coming hours.
