The Swiss National Bank’s vice president said the central bank lacked the means to save Credit Suisse from collapse in March.
In an interview with SonntagsBlick, Martin Schlegel said the severity of the lender’s liquidity problems caught the central bank and regulators off guard, and that the Swiss National Bank (SNB) couldn’t have rescued the troubled lender by providing more liquidity and positive messaging.
Credit Suisse’s “liquidity flowed out much faster than the regulators in Switzerland and abroad had expected,” Schlegel told the newspaper, stressing that the SNB had “no mandate” to save or take over the troubled lender.
Panicked investors pulled their money from the bank as the crisis mounted, and Credit Suisse didn’t have enough ready collateral to access sufficient funds from the Swiss central bank. The SNB in March introduced a special uncollateralized facility to bridge the bank until its rescue by UBS Group AG could be brokered. ...