Swiss banks UBS and Credit Suisse must almost triple the amount of cash they hold in relation to customer deposits under new proposals from Swiss regulators, two people familiar with the matter said, according to Bloomberg.

The banks may have to hold 45 per cent of customers’ demand deposits in cash or easy-to-sell securities such as government debt, almost three times as much as under current rules, the news agency quoted the unnamed sources as saying.

The banks, which are in talks with the regulators, are seeking to soften the requirements, the people said.

Switzerland may be the first country to introduce rules requiring banks to keep more liquid assets on hand following the global credit crisis, the report added.

Neither bank, nor Finma, the Swiss regulator, commented to WealthBriefing at the time of publication.

The article did not mention any other Swiss banks that might be affected by such regulatory changes.

If such a move became law, then it could affect the banks’ profitability, as they would be required to hold more money aside.

The issue of how large a fraction of client deposits must be held by a bank to cover potential withdrawals has shot up the agenda due to the financial turmoil. The credit crunch saw depositors scramble to pull money out of some embattled institutions, such as in the case of UK mortgage lender Northern Rock, which had to be later bailed out by the UK government.

Separately, bank capital adequacy standards, known collectively as Basel rules because of their being formulated by bankers meeting in the Swiss city, have been criticised for not providing the system with sufficient buffer capital to tide banks over in times of stress. Some critics have argued that such rules even encouraged banks to push credit risk off their balance sheets by the use of derivatives, creating what is sometimes dubbed the “shadow banking system”.