UBS chief executive Oswald Gruebel said yesterday he has the support of his board despite the rogue trading scandal that cost the Swiss bank US$2.3 billion and prompted calls for tougher regulation of risky investment bank practices.

Arriving in Singapore for meetings with the bank’s management and board, Gruebel laughed when asked at his hotel if he still had the board’s backing and said: “Yes. Always.”

Gruebel is expected to ask UBS’s board to back plans for a radical overhaul of investment banking under his leadership at a meeting in Singapore, a plan sources said would be sped up after the trading scandal.

UBS trader Kweku Adoboli was charged Friday with fraud and false accounting dating back to 2008 relating to the losses.

UBS said in a statement Sunday that Adoboli concealed “unauthorized speculative trading” in equity index futures over the last three months” by creating fictitious hedging positions in internal systems.

Gruebel said Sunday he would “bear the consequences” of the trading loss that was discovered last week but did not want to quit, adding the affair would influence the future strategy of the investment bank.

UBS is already under pressure to scale down, ring-fence or even split off its risky investment banking business from its core wealth management unit in order to shield private clients.

But a source said the board will not be rushed into dumping the investment bank following the rogue trades. (SD-Agencies)