Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell engaged in a phone call with Ralph Hamers, the CEO of UBS Group AG, in the days leading up to UBS being urged by Swiss authorities to acquire its smaller rival, Credit Suisse. This interaction was part of a series of numerous calls and meetings Powell had from mid-March onwards during a banking crisis.
The release of Powell’s monthly meeting logs by the Federal Reserve on Friday revealed that the conversation with Hamers took place on March 14, five days prior to UBS’s agreement to acquire Credit Suisse. The move was orchestrated by Swiss authorities to prevent further market disruptions in the global banking sector.