by Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book Substack
SOUTH BRONX/SDNY, Nov 18 – Amid the FDIC's bid to eliminate public notice of and public comment on branch applications, UBS -- Union Bank of Switzerland -- is trying to convert to a national bank in the US and become a bank holding company.
On November 11 Fair Finance Watch filed opposition to the Federal Reserve Board and to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency:
This is a timely first comment on the applications by UBS Group AG and UBS AG, both of Zurich, Switzerland, and UBS Americas Holding LLC and UBS Americas Inc to become bank holding companies by acquiring UBS Bank USA, Salt Lake City, Utah, upon the conversion of UBS Bank USA from a state-chartered industrial bank to a national bank.
UBS, beyond its involvement in predatory subprime lending - see, e.g., "UBS to pay $300 million to resolve US mortgage securities cases," August 4, 2025 - has numerous other compliance scandal on which public hearings should be held, on this application and possible plan to relocate to the US.
There is tax evasion and retaliation against whisteblowers: “France: UBS fined in France for harassing whistleblowers”, 10 March 2025 The Swiss bank UBS was fined €75,000 (CHF71,410), the maximum penalty, in Paris on Monday for moral harassment by its French subsidiary of two whistleblowers, who had denounced the tax evasion system organised by the bank. UBS Europe, which absorbed the French branch, was also ordered to pay €50,000 in damages to Nicolas Forissier, the former head of internal auditing. However, the bank was acquitted of witness tampering and obstructing the health, safety and working conditions committee. According to Forissier’s lawyer, William Bourdon, this is the first time in France that a whistleblower has obtained a conviction against his former employer. … At the hearing, the public prosecutor had requested a maximum fine of €225,000 for the three offences. … In the main case, UBS France was definitively acquitted in 2021 for complicity in laundering tax fraud, but fined €1.875 million for complicity in illegal canvassing. However, the case against the parent company, UBS AG, continues. In 2019, it was fined a record €3.7 billion, plus €800 million in damages, for setting up a “system” to “facilitate” tax evasion by wealthy French taxpayers between 2004 and 2012. On appeal in 2021, following a change in case law, the penalty was reduced to a total of €1.8 billion. And in 2023, the Court of Cassation definitively confirmed the bank’s guilt, but cancelled the penalties and damages, ordering a new trial to re-examine them.
There are human rights - and managerial - issues: the Society for Threatened Peoples Switzerland (STP) filed a specific instance against UBS Group AG (UBS) at the Swiss NCP. The complaint concerns the bank’s financial ties with Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co. Ltd. (Hikvision), a provider of modern surveillance technology that has played a key role in the mass surveillance of the Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in Xinjiang, China. Also involving private prisons in the US.
There are managerial factor issues, particularly on an initial application to become a US bank holding company. Fair Finance Watch hereby timely requests hearings, and the denial of these UBS applications. This comment period should be extended, evidentiary hearings should be held; and on the current record, the application should not be approved.
On November 25 UBS through Sullivan & Cromwell submitted a dismissive response, stating that " FFW criticizes UBS for business relationships with certain clients (e.g., private prisons). The Board has disregarded various comments based on abstract socio-political goals in connection with numerous prior applications, stating that those comments concern matters that are outside the scope of the limited statutory factors that the Board is authorized to consider when reviewing an application under the BHC Act. See Bank of Montreal, FRB Order No. 2023-01, at 13 n.35 (Jan. 17, 2023); BB&T Corp., FRB Order No. 2019-16, at 32 n.72 (Nov. 19, 2019)." Uighurs? Whistleblowers? UBS says none of it matter. Only its money. We'll see.
FFW notes in the FDIC's pending proposal RIN 3064-AG10: "the FDIC has received a limited number of public comments in response to subpart C applications.... Therefore, the FDIC is proposing to eliminate the public notice and related public comment period from subpart C and to make conforming changes to subpart A of 12 CFR part 303 of the FDIC Rules."
See, e.g., Sept 10, 2025: https://www.americanbanker.com/opinion/the-fdic-is-undercutting-a-key-element-of-the-cra
But now the Federal regulator(s) blithely propose(s) to eliminate public notice and public comment on banks' proposals to expand. The above-quoted reasoning is that few comments are filed. So, that is now changing.
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