Strengthening the legal framework to manage an international financial failure does not make failures more likely.

Contingent capital is still the subject of furious debate. Some have called it a dangerous instrument, while others say it may not do what regulators want. Some argue that it will be difficult to create a market big enough to absorb the needs of the banking sector if it becomes a compulsory part of the capital structure. But none of this stopped Credit Suisse's $2bn issue from being a storming success. 

Investment banking losses and US tax evasion charges sent clients of the leading wealth manager scurrying for the exits. But the crisis has renewed UBS's determination to succeed in private banking. Writer Philip Alexander

Drug company Roche made a rare foray into the markets recently, with BNP Paribas being among the bookrunners putting together its record-breaking euro bond deal to finance the purchase of US biotech firm Genentech. Writer Edward Russell-Walling

Credit Suisse fared well during the subprime crisis. Brian Caplen asks CEO Brady Dougan what underlies the bank’s new stability and what it is planning for the year ahead.

UBS
Peter Wuffli, CEO

The other axis on which the fortunes of the two rivals have recently pivoted has been the quiet world of Swiss private banking. In 2004, private banking and wealth management contributed 38% of UBS’s pre-tax profits, almost matching the 40% from the investment bank. At Credit Suisse, the proportion is even higher, with the private bank alone accounting for 42% of the group’s net income last year.

The changes in fortune of the two giant Swiss banks, Credit Suisse and UBS, offer lessons in growth strategy to bank CEOs. Geraldine Lambe and Sophie Röell look at the strategies that have worked and those that have not.

chairman and CEO, wealth management and business banking, UBS
“Meteoric rise” would be an appropriate phrase to describe Marcel Rohner’s ascent to the group executive board of Swiss giant UBS. At 40, the demure Swiss economist appears the type of Swiss banker that people would not hesitate to entrust with the family fortune.