Swiss banks' antiquated technology platforms are a hindrance to competing with nimbler rivals in Asia like DBS. Now, UBS and Credit Suisse have revived dormant talks on a potential tech tie-up. 

Only last week, UBS CEO Sergio Ermotti revived the term «superbank» – a subject which appeared to have been buried after SIX showed a lack of will or know-how on building the mooted centralized service provider for Swiss banks.

However the rising compliance and administrative costs haven’t gone away. And Ermotti again warned that this is weighing on margins. UBS and Credit Suisse have at last sat down and are formulating plans for a fusion of back office functions, news agency «Bloomberg» reported. The negotiations however are still at an early stage, it reports. Bloomberg didn't report specifics, such as what platform the Swiss giants would favor using.

Customers and Trade

The two are focusing talks on business areas like customer compliance and trading systems. Ermotti has already stressed it makes no sense for two banks to maintain expensive back offices when the pressures on margins are growing.

Credit Suisse CEO Tidjane Thiam has also alluded to the issue. The bank has already put out feelers to its rivals on the possibility of using common IT servers and data bases.
Neither UBS nor CS commented on the «Bloomberg» report.