The decision this Sunday by the Swiss bank UBS to make a purchase offer of about 3.25 billion dollars for Credit Suisse has as its main objective to stop the bank crisis, hours before the markets reopen this Monday. Although there is a general belief among analysts, financial institutions and monetary authorities that these crises are due to specific circumstances, both in the case of Silicon Valley Bank, which needed a rescue from the United States authorities about ten days ago, and now with Credit Suisse, after the Saudi Arabian bank announced that it would not inject more money to pull the financial institution out of crisis, the truth is that fear has spread to millions of bank investors around the world.
The Swiss National Bank, the alpine country's central bank, which is behind the UBS move and will provide around 100 billion dollars in liquidity to the acquired bank so that it can operate normally, is attempting with this move, not only to calm the markets, but also to save the prestige of its financial institutions. For any country, a systemic situation like that of Credit Suisse - as analysts and informed staff know first hand, it has been breathing on a respirator for years - is a serious one. But without a doubt, for Switzerland it is not only serious but lethal, and thus cannot be allowed to go beyond the point that it has now reached.
There are huge questions over how markets will react on Monday, as both the ECB and the US Federal Reserve eagerly await signs of financial stability. In fact, they were expecting them on Friday and in the end, it didn't turn out that way and the parquet floors were left stained with red, and the weekend was complicated. After these last two weeks of huge losses for many financial institutions, with some of them coming perilously close to 20% falls, it is obvious that stability means they have to fight their way back - with fluctuations, but leaving the area where they are now.
One last point, the absorption by the largest Swiss bank of the country's second-ranked financial institution is an exceptional event which, to get an idea, would be as if, in Spain, Santander swallowed BBVA. Beyond accelerating banking concentration in Switzerland, in what is surely the most exceptional operation since the 2008 crisis, it partly disarms efforts to avoid public bailouts when financial institutions are in trouble. There will be public aid again, among other things, because that formula is better than letting them fail and triggering a global panic. An observation that the regulatory banks will need to analyze.