Walter, the new head of Finma, spoke publicly for the first time on April 1st at a symposium in Bern’s Stade de Suisse. He announced that he wants to turn Finma into a “best-in-class supervisory authority” and emphasized the need for early intervention by supervisory authorities to prevent financial crises.
Walter, who spent several years as Director General at the European Central Bank (ECB) before moving to Switzerland, demanded that Finma be given the authority to use all its supervisory instruments in normal operations. He also called for increased equity at UBS parent company level and restrictions on capital distributions and remuneration in times of stress.
However, there is skepticism about the practicality of early intervention strategies and how they will affect financial institutions like UBS. Analysts are cautious about the feasibility of Walter’s proposals and how they will impact economic freedom and potential impacts on the financial industry.
Despite this, Walter’s vision for Finma aims to improve crisis prevention and transform it into a top-tier regulatory body among financial regulators. In his speech, he mentioned the vulnerabilities revealed by Credit Suisse bank run in 2022 and reiterated that early intervention is necessary to prevent such crises from happening again.
