UBS Hires ING Boss To Replace Ermotti 1 Week After Credit Suisse Ousts Thiam

Switzerland’s cross-town banking rivals are now under new management.

Despite presiding over several epic ‘compliance failures’ at ING that led the Dutch bank into the morass of a multibillion Russian money laundering scandal that has rocked the European banking system, ING boss Ralph Hamers has been tapped to succeed Sergio Ermotti at the helm of Switzerland’s largest bank – UBS.

According to the Financial Times, which got the scoop on Hamers’ ascension, Hamers will take over for Ermotti as his 8-year tenure at the helm of UBS comes to an end. Like many other European megabanks, UBS has suffered from a stagnant streak in its moneymaking wealth management business, and stalled merger talks with DWS, the actually-profitable offshoot of Deutsche Bank’s management business, didn’t help. Despite round after round of cutbacks in the name of efficiency, the bank’s board decided that Ermotti’s time had come.

Ralph Hamers

UBS chairman Axel Weber reportedly approached Hamers months ago and, following an internal and external search, Weber offered him the job after the board determined that Hamers was the most “capable and qualified” candidate.

Hamers joined ING 28 years ago, and has been its CEO since 2013, winning plaudits for leading ING through its post-crisis restructuring and the payback of a Dutch government bailout, while the compliance scandal marred his reputation, per FT.

Mr Hamers, who joined ING more than 28 years ago, has been chief executive of the Dutch lender since 2013. He led the bank through the completion of its post-financial crisis restructuring, repaying the money it received from the Dutch government and returning to dividend payments, while investing heavily in digital services and slashing the size of its traditional branch network.

However, his tenure has more recently been marred by a series of major compliance failings. The bank received a record €775m penalty from Dutch prosecutors in 2018, and has been banned from taking on new customers in Italy for more than a year.

ING was forced to pull an additional tier 1 bond offering on Wednesday because of “new information that has come to the issuer [ING], that needs to be studied”.

Notably, the report about Hamers new job comes less than a week since UBS’s cross-town rival Credit Suisse fired CEO Tidjane Thiam over the corporate spy scandal that rocked CS last year. Compared to Thiam, who scapegoated a longtime protege just to keep his job for a few more months, Hamers is a banking saint.