ZURICH (Reuters) – Switzerland’s financial market supervisory authority, Finma, wants to be able to publicly denounce banks that break its rules, its director Stefan Walter said on Tuesday in an interview with the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ).

Finma, which was criticized for its handling of the Credit Suisse bankruptcy last year, has increased demands for expanded powers. Stefan Walter, appointed in April, told the NZZ that making the sanctions imposed on financial institutions public would have a disciplinary effect.

“Today, publication of enforcement proceedings is the exception. In the future, non-publication should be the exception,” he said.

“It would also show the results of supervision. The dilemma for any supervisory authority is: If something goes wrong, everyone knows. If something is avoided, no one knows.”

Stefan Walter believes that banks must be more open and provide complete information and that the regulator must be able to carry out more on-site inspections.

“In extreme cases, you must have the ability to hold individuals accountable and, if necessary, remove them from office,” he added.

In April, the Swiss government proposed 22 measures in a document of recommendations on the control of so-called “too big to fail” banks.

UBS has already raised concerns about the potential changes, with group chairman Colm Kelleher saying that forcing banks to hold additional capital would not be the “right solution”.

Stefan Walter said he did not want to start a “quarrel” with UBS management, while indicating that sufficient capital is needed to reduce the risk and scale of a crisis in the future.

“Also important is the distribution of capital within the bank, which is crucial in the stabilization or resolution phase. The crisis at CS (Credit Suisse) showed this,” Stefan Walter told the NZZ.

(Reporting John Revill, Augustin Turpin, edited by Blandine Hénault)

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