The collapse of Credit Suisse Group AG was a shock, but it shouldn’t have been much of a surprise. Years of bad strategy and poor management decisions under a carousel of changing executives bred a co*ckroach nest of scandals and losses.
The big question is how the Swiss bank was allowed to slowly destroy itself. Why didn’t regulators or shareholders do more to alter its course? For the regulators, at least, the answer that has emerged in the year since its failure is that they lacked the tools. Beefing up the powers of Finma, the main financial watchdog, is the most pressing issue for Switzerland to protect the country and its financial industry. And given the size of UBS Group AG as a globally systemic bank, that matters for the rest of us.
