By Noele Illien, John Revill and Tom Sims
ZURICH/FRANKFURT (Reuters) -Swiss financial regulator FINMA and the nation’s central bank said on Wednesday that the Swiss National Bank would provide Credit Suisse liquidity “if necessary”, a first for a global bank since the financial crisis.
The two institutions said in a joint statement that Credit Suisse “meets the capital and liquidity requirements imposed on systemically important banks”.
The comments come after the bank’s stock plunged more than 30% on Wednesday and follow months of turmoil. Governments and at least one bank were putting pressure on Switzerland to act, said people familiar with the matter.
The SNB and FINMA also said “there are no indications of a direct risk of contagion for Swiss institutions due to the current turmoil in the U.S. banking market.”
The Swiss lender would be the first globally systemically important bank to receive a bespoke lifeline, compared with liquidity offered by central banks to the financial sector generally in times of extreme market stress, such as when economies went into lockdown to combat COVID-19.
Shares in Credit Suisse, which is battling to recover from a string of scandals that have undermined the confidence of investors and clients, lost nearly a quarter of their value on Wednesday.
The bank’s shares have taken a battering over the last 12 months, losing nearly three quarters of their worth to plunge to all time lows. The stock, which was worth around 80 Swiss francs in 2008 plunged to 1.55 Swiss francs on Wednesday.
The latest fall was triggered after its largest shareholder, Saudi National Bank, said it could not provide further financial help for the embattled lender.
(Reporting by Noele Illien, John Revill and Tom Sims; editing by John O’Donnell)