Sergio Ermotti is donating 1 million Swiss francs towards pandemic relief efforts. The UBS boss is working from home in his native Ticino, which borders the hardest-hit area in Europe.

The Swiss wealth manager's CEO said he has dispersed 1 million Swiss francs ($1.1 million) in personal funds to his family's foundations to help with relief efforts. Ermotti is working from home in Montagnola, a small Swiss village overlooking Lake Lugano and near the Swiss-Italian border.

«I hear about the difficult situation in the hospitals and people who have lost members of their family. The situation is dramatic!,» Ermotti told Swiss tabloid «Blick» (in German) in an interview on Monday. His corona donation will be dispensed by a foundation he launched together with his wife and his siblings in 2011.

Part of Solution vs Problem

Ermotti said the funds will be routed via non-profit organizations to people in need of emergency funds. UBS itself has also been generous, donating 30 million francs for patients and families in Switzerland affected by the virus' outbreak.

The crisis represents an opportunity for Ermotti to display UBS' Swiss credibility: «Now, we're part of the solution and not part of the problem anymore,» he told the outlet, alluding to Switzerland's 2008 bailout of UBS.

Public-Private Loan Bazooka

Last week, the Swiss government unleashed a massive bailout, enlisting banks like UBS to help small businesses battered by the crisis. «We received 10,000 loan applications within 36 hours. By Sunday night, all of them were processed and roughly 1 billion Swiss francs approved,» Ermotti said.

UBS, like Credit Suisse, has pledged to donate any proceeds from the emergency loans to charity. Ermotti ends his nine-year tenure as CEO of UBS in November when Ralph Hamers, head of ING, takes over his job.