A large majority want to hold those responsible for CS accountable

class=”sc-3778e872-0 gWjAEa”>

In the end, the bankruptcy of an American niche bank was enough to plunge the ramshackle Credit Suisse into the abyss. Last Sunday, the Federal Council determined the end of the traditional house.

The majority of Swiss people support this decision. This is demonstrated by a representative survey of 7407 French and German speaking Swiss respondents by the Sotomo opinion research institute on behalf of SonntagsBlick. 56 percent of respondents agree with the Federal Council that a longer wait will lead to unforeseen economic turmoil. Support is strongest in the middle of the political spectrum and weakest among supporters of the SVP.

Nothing has yet been said about the specific procedure, with the judge’s intervention widely approved. The Federal Council urged UBS to take over the staggering rival. For this, the state had to give billions of guarantees. The government invoked the emergency law and ignored shareholders’ voice.

Two-thirds blame Urs Rohner the most

This solution has no public support. Two-thirds of respondents deny this. Switzerland would have preferred to see the state nationalize the CS and then sell it. 61 percent of respondents would prefer this variant. Monster UBS is failing to find support among the public. Therefore, four out of five respondents are requesting that UBS re-outsource Credit Suisse’s domestic business to avoid risk concentration.

The fact that the Federal Council should have solved the problem differently does not mean that the public blames it for the disaster. Here Mr and Mrs Schweizer make a clear distinction. They’re angry at the behavior of CS executives, not any political or regulatory negligence: 77 percent of respondents cite CS management mismanagement as a cause for anger, even if they’ve mentioned it more than once.

No wonder there is agreement when it comes to specific names, too. When asked who cut the worst number in this crisis, two of the three respondents answered Urs Rohner (63), who served as President of CS from 2009 to 2021. He collected over 43 million Swiss francs and plunged the bank straight into the abyss. In second place among the main culprits is current CS Chairman Axel Lehmann (64), who announced shortly before the bankruptcy that the bank would absolutely not need government funds.

Rare unanimity

None of the managers who ruined the money house took responsibility. Tidjane Thiam (60), the former CEO of the scandal, revealed this week that she has done an excellent job. But no one in this country believes such claims anymore. On the contrary: Switzerland wants Rohner and Co. to pay – literally: 96 percent of all respondents demand that the Credit Suisse CEOs and Board members responsible for the decline be held financially accountable.

“I’ve never seen so many unanimous responses,” says Sotomo Managing Director Michael Hermann (51). “Especially the unanimous demand for financial responsibility by those responsible is impressive. It shows the strong contrast between the self-perceptions of those responsible for CS and the mood in the population.”

For years, bonus-driven CS bankers ignored all warning signs and kept going until they crashed. But at Credit Suisse, bonuses aren’t just etiquette. Banks all over the world rely on it. And to this day they have resisted calls to reconsider their incentive systems. In Switzerland, the parliament rejected a corresponding SP initiative in 2018. But now the subject comes up again – even from the bourgeois parties.

Left positions are becoming socially acceptable

There is a windfall from the population – and it is fierce: two-thirds of Swiss people are calling for a ban on bonuses for systemically important local banks. These include UBS and Credit Suisse, as well as Raiffeisen, ZKB and Postfinance. With 83 percent, the highest approval comes from SP’s. But 68 percent of SVP supporters also support it.

Less than half are among FDP sympathizers alone: ​​38 percent. “Left views, previously unacceptable, are now gaining a majority in the bourgeois camp,” says political scientist Hermann. Population in general did not make capitalism more critical. “But their stance on banking capitalism has clearly changed. With the simultaneous destruction of values ​​on a massive scale, self-enrichment is no longer socially acceptable.”

And the public is waiting for politicians to act: those responsible for the disaster must be held to account. And end the runaway risk culture of banks. But the public also want Credit Suisse’s decline to be properly addressed: 86 percent of respondents want a parliamentary inquiry committee to be set up.

Source :Blick