(Reuters) – Bank of America has doubled its banking team in Switzerland, seizing on a potential opportunity to gain market share as bigger Swiss rivals deal with tougher regulation.
Switzerland has pledged to put in place stricter banking rules since the 2023 collapse of Credit Suisse, which was then taken over by UBS. At the center of the overhaul are plans to make UBS hold more capital to prevent a repeat of the crisis.
“Recently, with the disruption that went on in Switzerland, we added some bankers to build our team there,” Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan said at a conference on Wednesday, adding that the size of the team doubled “pretty quickly”.
The Swiss government has said it wants stricter capital requirements for UBS and its three biggest peers – PostFinance, Raiffeisen and Zürcher Kantonalbank.
In December, UBS CEO Sergio Ermotti said tougher regulation across the board could weaken the Swiss financial sector against competition. He said on Monday that doesn’t expect “much clarity until May.”
BofA’s international business is overseen by Bernard Mensah, who also heads Merrill Lynch International.
(Reporting by Niket Nishant in Bengaluru and Saeed Azhar in New York; Editing by Tasim Zahid)
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