Switzerland’s financial market supervisory authority faces heavy criticism for its handling of the emergency takeover of Credit Suisse by UBS. Now its head is calling for more powers.
The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (Finma) needs more powers as the Credit Suisse case has shown, Finma CEO Urban Angehrn wrote in a guest commentary in the «NZZ» (in German) Wednesday.
The authority's current remit is too limited for extreme cases, he said, calling for it to be given more scope, including the ability to impose sanctions and hand out fines as is already the case in other countries.
One way Finma could strengthen confidence in the Swiss financial center would be by being able to provide more information about its supervisory activities, he added.
No Replacement
While the supervisory authority isn't «intended to replace boards of directors and management boards, nor is it intended to be a punitive authority» In the run-up to Credit Suisse’s collapse, Finma «took measures, conducted proceedings and issued injunctions because those responsible at Credit Suisse themselves did not react sufficiently,» he said.
In the future, he would like to see banks «clearly assign responsibility to the people in the management bodies.»
Ultimately, it's up to politicians to decide which tools the financial market supervisory authority may deploy. However, even with new instruments, Finma will not be able to «supervise away» every crisis and will never be able to provide an «all-encompassing supervision,» he said.
