So would you go to UBS or Chase?

Jamie Dimon Courtesy: Wiki Commons

The Mike Mayo-Jamie Dimon exchange was pretty hilarious.

I don't care how rich Jamie Dimon is, but he dodged a good question pretty well. Did he really have to?

The facts remain that UBS has a higher capital ratio ( ~14%) compared to JP Morgan Chase ( ~10%). Would that cause a rich investor to chose UBS over JPM?

If all else was equal, maybe! But is all else equal?

To start with, JPM has over a 2 trillion asset base, while UBS is less than 50 billion. Does this make JPM too big to fail? Does this mean that UBS has less risk? Which of the two has a more diversified asset base - in terms of quality of assets, types of businesses, geographical spread? Who has a better return on equity?

All else is not equal. Banks will not and should not live by Tier 1 capital ratio alone.

I would like to know which bank actually has a better risk management system in place. Despite Basel III and Dodd Frank and several reams of regulation later, this is one thing that regulators will never be able to tell. And I will go to Chase!