Awarding good and bad points, with blows of “we should have”, “it should have” may seem terribly treacherous, after the purchase of Credit Suisse by UBS ripped off this weekend by forceps. The collapse of the country’s second bank was so dazzling that the Federal Council, the SNB and Finma, the financial market supervisory authority, could only take note on Friday evening of the state of clinical death of the bank of “entrepreneurs”. An establishment that has accompanied the development of modern Switzerland, maintaining the myth of a privileged nation, dedicated to success and prosperity.
We must all the same stop for a moment to take stock of the disaster that has occurred in recent days. Credit Suisse wasn’t just labeled “too big to fail”; the bank founded in 1856 by Alfred Escher could not and should not fall. Not because on ski caps, football pitches or advertisements displaying the wide smile of Roger Federer, she was a companion of our lives, but because the vital functions of the bank were healthy until a few days ago. . The establishment was solvent, it respected the very strict criteria established in the wake of the great global financial crisis of 2008.
Our continuous follow-up: Credit Suisse is acquired by UBS in historic agreement
Alternative there was
It was reckoning without trust, the real dictator of the financial markets. A bankruptcy on the other side of the planet and clumsy remarks from a new shareholder were enough to sow deadly doubt in the minds of investors, precipitating the end of the number two Swiss bank, at least in its current form.
An inevitable end? If the takeover of Credit Suisse by its rival seemed this weekend the only solution capable of avoiding a collapse of the Swiss and international financial system, we say to ourselves that there have still been some sacred missed opportunities. The main one: that of the extraction of the Swiss entity, foster mother of the group in danger, which shareholders as minority as minoritized had been asking for a long time, intensifying their calls again last autumn.
This scenario was however planned in the rescue plans of the establishments too big to fail. It is incomprehensible that the wait-and-see attitude shown by the authorities rendered it obsolete.
No, definitely, Credit Suisse should not fall! On the evening of a day as historic as it was disastrous for the Swiss financial centre, one cannot help thinking that in recent months, the SNB, Finma and the Federal Council have shown a sad excess of… confidence.
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