Sergio Ermotti is celebrated for 1 million for Corona-Ticino. Less than 1 percent of his UBS earnings in 9 years. The Twitter CEO meanwhile gives 1 billion, 28 percent of his assets.
Big applause – for what exactly? Ermotti’s donation show symbolizes the commercial banks in the Corona storm. You are the winners of the virus crisis – Big Time.
Bern’s 40 billion guarantee saves banks from default. Now everyone – from butchers to bike shops – has liquids. Many of these companies have long had the water on their necks.
CS, UBS, ZKB, everyone is shouting: Come here, you debtor, get your loan. For the banks the gift for Easter par excellence. You will get rid of all the cash that you would otherwise give to the central bank.
And would have to pay a CHF 7.50 negative interest rate per CHF 1,000. Now they hardly pay anything anymore. The exemption limit, i.e. the scope for exemption from the minus interest, has been increased massively.
And the banks give credit à gogo. Who has not yet, who wants more?
You earn at least 75 basis points on each loan. For the larger loans over half a million, it is 125 basis points, or 1.25 percent.
To 40 billion, that makes around 225 million of the small borrowers plus 125 million of the larger. A total of 350 million – and the trend is increasing. Covid help can continue to grow.
UBS, CS and Co. emphasize that they do not want to earn anything from the virus shutdown. We donate everything that remains.
That means: little. After wages, bonuses and dividends, there should hardly be much for aid organizations and offered hands.
Because bonuses and dividends continue to flow. This is also an extra Helvetian sausage. In England, the money houses had to do without both. The Bank of England ultimately demanded it.
With us? There is the Finma and the National Bank. And both are cute like lambs. They did not order, they only recommended; dividends should be avoided.
Both major banks announced this morning. Finma was heard and the dividends were paid out in stages in favor of the shareholders – including top management as the largest. The first half now, the second in a few months.
Hallelujah.
Bonus waiver? Oh no. But that’s exactly what England’s financial houses had to do. They had no choice because the regulator would have knocked on the table.
It works differently in the Swiss Confederation. The big banks and their bosses pass the tariff with 10 million a year or more. Supervision, central bank, government say yes and amen.
The extent to which the banks are the big “war winners” can be seen in their behavior in relation to the negative interest rates charged to customers.
They have been paying interest on their balances for months and sometimes even years. The reasoning of the bankers: we can not help it, the central bank forces us to do it, it also burdens us.
Not anymore. Exemption limit high, also all liquid away for the Covid loans: The problem of excess cash, which is expensive to park at the SNB on Börsenstrasse, is off the table.
One would think that it would be time to lift the negative interest rates for the pension fund and private customers. But far from it: savers will continue to be burdened.
If one more proof was needed, the corona catastrophe delivers it: The banks always win.
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