UBS: the bank that outgrew a country

Published on May 18, 2026

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Swissinfo
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UBS chair Colm Kelleher was driving back to Zurich from Bern in March 2023 when his phone rang. The Irish banker was heading home after a weekend of tumultuous negotiations that had culminated in a historic $3.25 billion (CHF2.55 billlion) deal to rescue UBS’s rival Credit Suisse. On the other end of the line was Jamie Dimon, chief executive of US giant JPMorgan Chase and a veteran of emergency bank takeovers, calling to offer a piece of advice, even as he thanked Kelleher for his contribution in stabilising the global banking system. Dimon — whom Kelleher knew well from his years atop Wall Street rival Morgan Stanley — had a clear message, according to people briefed on the conversation: do not let the Swiss authorities change the terms of the deal to acquire UBS’s traditional adversary. More than three years later, UBS and the Swiss government remain locked in a stand-off over how much capital it must have to guard against disaster, a dispute that stems from the deal struck on ... Full story here Are you the author?

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SWI swissinfo.ch – the international service of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SBC). Since 1999, swissinfo.ch has fulfilled the federal government’s mandate to distribute information about Switzerland internationally, supplementing the online offerings of the radio and television stations of the SBC. Today, the international service is directed above all at an international audience interested in Switzerland, as well as at Swiss citizens living abroad.

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