The bank issued an upbeat, if measured, tone in its annual report for 2025, with senior figures again stressing that Swiss authorities should not overstep in laying down new capital requirements.

Yesterday, UBS said it is on track to “substantially” complete the integration of Credit Suisse at the end of this year. The CEO and chairman of Switzerland’s largest bank also repeated that the country needs to avoid unduly heavy capital rules.

In a letter to shareholders as part of the Zurich-listed bank’s annual report, CEO Sergio Ermotti (main picture) and Colm Kelleher, board chairman, said that during 2025, UBS achieved milestones including migrating most client accounts from Credit Suisse.

Three years ago this month, UBS acquired Credit Suisse in an emergency deal supported by the Swiss federal government after the latter bank was hit by a raft of scandals and missteps. The takeover revived concerns about the “too-big-to-fail” problem that bank “shotgun marriages” pose for the stability of the financial system. Switzerland now has only one universal bank. Raising memories of the 2008 financial crash, the Credit Suisse rescue highlighted how stricken banks pose a potential charge on taxpayers without measures being put in place. The UBS takeover, made at the behest of the Swiss authorities, was one of the largest M&A deals of its kind in years. As part of the process, holders of Additional Tier 1 bonds issued by Credit Suisse were wiped out, triggering lawsuits.

Ermotti and colleagues have locked horns with policymakers in Berne about mooted capital requirements that UBS fears could threaten the bank’s competitive edge.

Results last year gave cause for cheer: UBS logged a 53 per cent year-on-year net profit, attributable to shareholders, of $7.77 billion. However, share price performance so far in 2026 has shown a 22.4 per cent fall, along with declines in a number of other banks hit by the flight from risk amidst the upsurge of military conflict in the Middle East. Shares in JP Morgan are down 12.3 per cent since the start of 2026; shares in Deutsche Bank are down almost 21 per cent, for example.

Capital pushback
While saluting progress made, the two senior figures reiterated Switzerland’s need to avoid over-onerous capital rules.

“Robust oversight is essential for a healthy financial centre. At the same time, all parties agree that any regulatory amendments must be targeted, proportionate and internationally aligned. Experience shows that past idiosyncratic crises in the banking sector mostly stemmed from poor business strategy and risk management, not from insufficient capital requirements,” they wrote. “By granting substantial regulatory concessions and not publicly communicating early on about Credit Suisse’s weaknesses, the Swiss authorities enabled Credit Suisse to muddle through and avoid the market’s discipline, forestalling timely action to adjust its business model.

“With the integration of Credit Suisse, we are creating an even more resilient firm, not only for our shareholders, clients and employees, but for all stakeholders and the whole of Switzerland. Protecting and expanding Switzerland’s competitiveness is an obligation shared by both political and economic spheres,” they wrote.

Kelleher and Ermotti said UBS transitioned all client accounts booked outside Switzerland and 85 per cent of those booked in Switzerland to UBS platforms,  and it is on track to carry out the remaining client transfers by the end of March. 

UBS also wrapped up its integration of asset management, including the final portfolio migrations onto UBS platforms.

Costs
“After delivering further efficiency improvements, we exceeded our cost-reduction targets, with cumulative gross cost savings reaching $10.7 billion in 2025, above our guidance of around $10 billion. This reflects our progress in decommissioning legacy technology applications and infrastructure, and in simplifying our legal entity structure. We identified an additional $500 million of incremental gross cost savings, taking the planned cumulative total to $13.5 billion by the end of 2026.”

The duo said UBS’s non-core and legacy unit linked to the Credit Suisse takeover continued to “wind down non-strategic positions and reduce exposures.”

Since it was set up in 2023, NCL has freed up $8 billion of capital and reduced its risk-weighted assets by two-thirds and its underlying operating costs by around 80 per cent compared with the full-year 2022 baseline. UBS said it exited the costliest debt inherited from Credit Suisse, which was issued at distressed spreads prior to the acquisition of 2023. UBS also resolved several outstanding legacy litigation matters.

Executive compensation
UBS kept Ermotti's total compensation steady at SFr14.9 million ($19 million). His salary is composed of a fixed part of SFr2.8 million and a variable part of SFr12.1 million, reports said. In total, the board of directors received total remuneration of SFr145.3 million for 2025, little changed from 2024, media reports said.

Significant shareholdings
The report noted that figures filed with UBS and the SIX Swiss Exchange on 31 December 2025, the following entities held more than 3 per cent of the voting rights on the bank: Norges Bank (Norway), which disclosed a 4.90 per cent stake on 22 January 2025; and BlackRock (US), which disclosed a 5.01 per cent holding on 30 November 2023. UBS employees held at least 6.94 per cent of UBS shares outstanding.