by John Revill
ZURICH (Reuters) – The director of the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA), Urban Angehrn, has resigned, the Swiss stock market policeman announced on Wednesday, after being strongly criticized for not having been able to avoid the bankruptcy of Credit Suisse.
Urban Angehrn will step down at the end of the month, the authority said in a statement.
Urban Angehrn, who had headed FINMA since November 2021, explained his departure for health reasons.
“Being able to contribute to the sustainable promotion of the quality of the Swiss financial center as Director of FINMA was a unique challenge for me, in which I invested all my strength. But this heavy and prolonged workload had consequences for my health,” Urban Angehrn said in the statement.
His deputy, Birgit Rutishauser, will become acting director from 1 October.
FINMA has been criticized for having acted late, or ineffectively, in the face of the difficulties of Credit Suisse, which has accumulated financial scandals in recent years and had to be bought out urgently by its rival UBS in March.
The Swiss media have accused the stock market policeman of having been too timid in the face of the big Swiss banks and of having assigned too few people to their supervision.
For his part, Urban Angehrn pleaded for FINMA to obtain increased powers, in particular the ability to impose sanctions and distribute fines, as is already the case in other countries.
(Report by John Revill, Blandine Hénault for the French version, edited by Bertrand Boucey)
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