DAVOS - UBS executives and federal finance staff were in the same hotels on Thursday, which is not a coincidence. The government's wish that foreign units be backed with 100 percent Common Equity Tier 1 capital remains the argument that will run all year. The bank calls the extra equity expensive. The ministry calls it the price of 2023.
Nobody offered a compromise figure in the snow. Davos is a place to test which lines still shock. Full backing still shocks the bank. Partial backing still shocks people who remember Credit Suisse.
A paper due in Bern
The Swiss National Bank's stability review, published the following week in our Zurich report, would take the government's side on arithmetic. Parliament would take until autumn to take a side at all.