Credit Suisse, government, central bank and authority under indictment for bankruptcy
The commission of enquiry into the collapse of the Swiss bank points the finger at the failings of the various actors
2' min read
2' min read
Strong criticism of the supervisory body Finma, the Swiss National Bank, and the Swiss government is said to be present in some of the preliminary conclusions of the parliamentary commission examining the fall of Credit Suisse in 2023 in Bern. This is according to the Swiss media and in particular the SonntagsZeitung, which reported in detail on the rumours on the subject. Finma, the SNB and the Finance Ministry did not wish to comment on these rumours. A spokesperson for the parliamentary commission, for its part, said that it had completed its fact-finding phase but had not yet reached its final conclusions.
The report
.The Commission is indeed expected to make its final report known at the end of the year, but according to some Swiss media the critical bias is already very much in evidence. Credit Suisse, Switzerland's second largest bank until last year, was taken over by UBS, Switzerland's largest institution, in a deal supported by the supervisory body, the central bank and the executive. The integration of Credit Suisse into UBS, announced in March 2023, is proceeding at a good pace and the transaction cannot be called into question, but the Swiss parliament wants to see what has or has not been done in relation to the crisis that has emerged.
The Commission would be inclined to say that the authorities as a whole were not prepared to prevent or contain the downfall of Credit Suisse, despite the fact that the bank had been classified as systemic for years and despite the fact that it had obvious problems for many months. This would mirror the findings of an earlier analysis by Paul Tucker, former deputy governor of the Bank of England, which formed the basis of the 'Too Big to Fail' report for the Swiss Finance Ministry itself.
The Markets Authority
.Criticism of Finma, the financial supervisory authority, would mainly focus on its lack of determination. Finma should be given more powers in some respects, something the Swiss government has in fact considered, but without fundamentally changing the picture so far.
The Swiss National Bank
.As for the Swiss National Bank, it would be criticised in particular for having been restrictive in granting emergency liquidity and for not reporting existing problems early on, when Credit Suisse had already started to be in deep trouble.
