Swiss Parliament panel to discuss Credit Suisse billion-dollar scandal

Prospect of concrete action remains unclear despite the crisis at the country's second-biggest bank

A Swiss Parliamentary committee will discuss the fallout from billions of dollars worth of losses at Credit Suisse amid risk-management failures, bringing political scrutiny to bear on the financial sector, a Sunday paper reported.

"It's the politicians' turn on the Credit Suisse issue," the SonntagsZeitung quoted Prisca Birrer-Heimo, a Social Democrat member of the lower house's economic affairs committee, as saying ahead of committee hearings set for Monday and Tuesday.

Credit Suisse declined to comment on the report.

Political intervention in the private sector is unusual in Switzerland and the prospect for concrete action remains unclear despite the crisis at the country's second-biggest bank.

Credit Suisse is raising capital and has halted share buybacks, cut its dividend and revamped management after losing more than $5 billion from the collapse of investment fund Archegos and having to suspend asset management funds linked to insolvent British supply chain finance firm Greensill.

New Chairman Antonio Horta-Osorio has said the scale of the bank's problems is his biggest challenge yet, and promised a thorough review of what went so badly wrong.

Birrer-Heimo said the question was "whether and how the regulation of the big banks needs to be tightened", citing risk-management shortcomings, a bonus-driven incentive system, and the size of capital buffers banks must hold to ride out crises.

Even business-friendly politicians think it might be time for the public sector to weigh in, the paper said.

"We don't have an existential crisis today," former MP and Liberals party leader Philipp Mueller was quoted as saying, "but I was still surprised that there have been no political reactions so far."

FINMA has already opened proceedings against Credit Suisse in connection with Archegos and Greensill case and imposed extra capital requirements on the bank.

Credit Suisse said this month it will keep limits on its risk-weighted assets and leverage while it remains under regulatory scrutiny.

The conduct of Credit Suisse AG, the biggest loser to emerge from the blowup of Archegos, will be among the topics at the meetings scheduled for Monday and Tuesday, the newspaper reported, without citing where it got the information. Lawmakers have to weigh possible tighter rules for risk management, the provision of capital buffers and remuneration policies, Prisca Birrer-Heimo, a councillor with the Social Democratic Party, told SZ.

A spokesperson for Credit Suisse declined to comment.

Archegos’ implosion cost Credit Suisse $5.5 billion and forced it to raise about $2 billion of fresh capital to shore up its balance sheet. Its larger Swiss rival, UBS Group AG, also disclosed an $861 million hit from the collapse of Archegos and vowed to improve risk management.