GENEVA - THE former head of the Swiss bank UBS said on Sunday he was giving up 12 million Swiss francs (S$15 million) to which was contractally entitled as a 'gesture of solidarity' to the bank's staff.

'I have in all given back 12 million francs which were coming to me under my contract,' Mr Peter Wuffli, who served as UBS president, told the weekly NZZ am Sonntag.

His decision comes at a time when there is growing pressure for the salaries of the senior staff at the bank to be be reviewed downwards.

Mr Wuffli, who quit his job in July 2007, said his decision was a 'gesture of solidarity with the senior executives and employees of UBS who have done remarkable work in a difficult situation'.

He said the bank deserved full confidence.

'Neither the banks nor the regulators measured the risks,' Mr Wuffli said of the losses incurred by UBS, Switzerland's leading bank, which is the object of a massive bail-out by the Swiss authorities.

On Saturday, Finance Minister Hans-Rudolf Merz called on 'the top staff at UBS to reimburse spontaneously their undeserved bonuses'.

In newspaper interviews he said that 'the initial idea of bonuses has been partly perverted', adding that 'unacceptable things took place' and that the 'people concerned should go ahead with the paying back of their bonuses'.

UBS said recently it would study later this month at its general assembly the reimbursement of bonuses paid to its senior staff in the past.

Mr Marcel Ospel, the former chairman of the UBS board of directors, whose earnings were described as 'pharaonic' by the current Swiss president, has yet to say whether he will hand back part of his pre-2007 bonuses.

Last year, he did not take extra payments with the result that his earnings fell by 90 per cent.

Mr Ospel has recently been tagged 'public enemy number one' by the Swiss media who have been on his trail without success since he stepped down from his position wih UBS in April 2008.

On October 16, UBS was given a 60-billion-dollar (S$89.8 billion) lifeline by the government, central and bank and banking confederation as part of an overall 'financial stabilisation' plan. -- AFP