Hildebrand calls for restrictions on leverage

Philipp Hildebrand, the vice-chairman of the Swiss National Bank (SNB), said excess leverage was the main cause of financial fragility and the current global banking crisis, and called for restrictions on leverage ratios.

Hildebrand, who is also chairman of the deputies of the G10, said in a speech to the Financial Markets Group of the London School of Economics on 15 December that the SNB had argued for years that the high leverage of Swiss banks made them "particularly vulnerable" to extrem