While Swiss giants UBS and Credit Suisse moderated their payout plans, the local lender is poised to pamper its shareholders. ZKB will plow ahead with a dividend plan reached before the pandemic hit.
Zuercher Kantonalbank will pay the full 500 million Swiss francs ($526 million) in dividends to its canton and municipalities, despite the coronavirus, Swiss newswire «AWP» (behind paywall, in German) reported on Monday. ZKB, a local government-backed lender, is systemically relevant like UBS, Credit Suisse, and Raiffeisen.
The Swiss giants acquiesced to their regulator's request to rethink their payout plans for 2019, which were decided before the pandemic shut down large parts of Europe in March. The government of Zurich decided that ZKB's payout plan doesn't represent a risk for the bank, the newswire report.
Commemorative Payout
The payout is more than 41 percent higher than the 358 million it paid out for 2018. The 2019 dividend coincides with commemorations of ZKB's 150th anniversary – the bank is fully owned by the canton of Zurich.
A left-wing party had sought to block approval of the bank's accounts for last year, arguing the payout represents a risk since the effect of the coronavirus isn't yet fully known. The motion was denied in local parliament.
