Switzerland will ask Credit Suisse and UBS to hold as much capital as US peers

Switzerland's finance ministry will ask the country's lenders to hold as much regulatory capital as their US peers.

Credit Suisse and UBS will be asked to set aside capital worth approximately 5% of their total assets, according to people briefed on the deliberations and quoted by Bloomberg News.

Earlier in the year, chief Sergio Ermotti went on the record saying he was not against stricter regulation but that it was wrong to apply the same rules to Swiss banks as to their counterparts in the US.

“And who profits most if we adapt to the American rules?” Ermotti said in August in 2015. “The U.S. banks.”

At a Barclays conference last month, participants surveyed by the newswire listed Switzerland's leverage ratio as the biggest regulatory uncertainty hanging over UBS.

The government has yet to approve the proposed rule.

In the end, the new regulations may call for Swiss lenders to hold at least 3.5% of assets in the form of capital, with the remainder being safeguarded in the form of so-called convertible debt, one of the persons cited said.

The news came as UBS was reportedly weighing raising $6.2bn in fresh capital ahead of its upcoming results announcement.

Zurich-based UBS finished the second quarter with a Basel III leverage ratio of 3.6%.

As of 09:15 shares of UBS were trading 2.79% lower at 18.50 Swiss francs and those of Credit Suisse down by 2.90% at 23.47 Swiss francs.