United Kingdom Press Release

Press Release

Credit Suisse response to closure of legacy case review by FINMA and update on progress in compliance

Credit Suisse has taken note of today’s announcement by FINMA and acknowledges the conclusions it has reached regarding our bank as part of an ongoing review of legacy cases across the Swiss banking sector. In the case of Credit Suisse, that review covered cases originating in the period between 2006 and 2014.

In concluding its review, FINMA has identified a number of deficiencies noted during that period and has asked us to continue and to intensify the actions we are already taking to address those deficiencies. The bank commissioned independent reviews of the conduct in question, self-reported the shortcomings, and has cooperated with FINMA throughout the process, taking proactive remediation measures. We are grateful to FINMA for its acknowledgement of the improvements that have been made to our compliance and control framework over the last few years and of the additional measures already planned by the bank. We have noted that as a result of this review, FINMA has not imposed any fine on Credit Suisse, not ordered any disgorgement of profits nor any limitation of business activities.

As part of the restructuring of the bank initiated in 2015, we have taken a number of actions to continuously improve and strengthen compliance at Credit Suisse:

  • In October 2015, we separated our Legal and Compliance functions, creating a dedicated Group Compliance and Regulatory Affairs function that reports directly to the CEO, with a new Head sitting on the Executive Board.
  • We have increased our global Compliance headcount by 42% in less than three years, hiring over 800 additional compliance specialists.
  • We have made more than 10,000 bank-wide control enhancements to correct legacy weaknesses, while pivoting investments into next-generation technology and data analytics.
  • We have deployed state-of-the-art systems and industry-leading capabilities to mitigate unwanted risks, including three labs that continually enhance our prevention and detection capabilities. We now have 40 data scientists in Compliance alone who manage and enhance our ability to detect risks on a real time basis.
  • We have developed a Single Client View program, giving our Compliance teams an integrated view of clients for the first time in the history of our bank. We are in the process of extending this program, which already covers 99% of our client activity, to other areas of the bank.

In addition, we have implemented a new compensation framework that enables performance to be assessed against specific risk and conduct metrics across the entire organisation. We have created a Conduct and Ethics Board chaired by two of our Executive Board members to ensure that we carry out our business according to the highest standards.

As a further step, the Board of Directors intends to establish a dedicated Compliance, Conduct and Culture Board Committee that will consolidate the Board’s ongoing intensive efforts to address these important topics and ensure they continue to receive the highest strategic focus and priority at all times.

We believe that all these measures have led to tangible and lasting improvements in our organisation and will continue to do so – allowing us to detect, categorise, monitor and document business relationships and transactions in a more effective manner.

Implementing a culture of compliant growth at Credit Suisse is our highest priority and it is an individual and collective responsibility that we take extremely seriously. We will continue to work closely with FINMA to complete the changes that are underway and implement additional measures.