UBS has examined the possibility of clawing back the huge bonuses paid to former executives of the loss-making bank and will update shareholders on the issue later this month.

In its agenda for a special general meeting on November 27, the Swiss bank promised to discuss the “issue of repayment of previously granted incentive awards”. There have been calls in Switzerland for Marcel Ospel, the chairman who oversaw UBS’s disastrous expansion, to hand back sums he was paid over seven years. Mr Ospel, who received SwFr26.6 million (£14 million) in 2006 and SwFr2.5 million last year, stepped down in April after his strategy led the bank to make $48 billion (£30 billion) of writedowns.

UBS has since admitted that its pay policy encouraged bankers to take excessive risks for short-term gains. It must present the Swiss Federal Banking Commission (SFBC) with a new pay policy this month after accepting SwFr6 billion in government funding last month to prop up the bank.

The Swiss Government said that it would amend company law to add rules on executive pay. The SFBC will draw up standards that comply with the new regulations. However, the SFBC said there will be no upper limit on bonuses and nor would it enforce attempts to retrieve bonuses already paid, since that was a civil law matter.

In Britain, chief executives of the struggling banks Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and HBOS have volunteered to forgo their 2008 bonuses. The banks, and Lloyds TSB, will receive up to £37 billion as part of the Government’s £500 billion banks bailout.

None of HBOS’s executive directors nor RBS’s board members will receive a bonus this year. RBS’s board has promised to take bonuses in stock next year. Lloyds TSB said its directors would be paid 2008 bonuses in shares.

Stephen Hester, the former British Land chief executive brought in to turn around RBS, will receive £1.2 million in basic pay, less than the £1.29 million paid to Sir Fred Goodwin, RBS’s outgoing chief executive, last year. He will receive shares worth £6.7 million, vesting over three years, to replace awards he gave up on leaving British Land.

— The European Commission has refused to give Commerzbank instant clearance for an €8.2 billion (£6.6 billion) German Government capital injection to help it over losses from the financial crisis. Regulators question whether Germany’s second-largest bank by assets would pay too little for the capital.

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