The European Central Bank (ECB), the US Federal Reserve and other major central banks have announced a "coordinated action" to facilitate banking transactions in dollars, thereby calming financial markets. As the participating central banks announced on Sunday evening, so-called swap transactions are to be expanded from Monday, with which the central banks exchange foreign currencies with each other. The aim is to improve the supply of dollars to central banks outside the US.

In addition to the ECB and the Fed, the Swiss National Bank and the central banks of Great Britain, Canada and Japan are involved. They reportedly agreed to increase the frequency of currency swaps in dollars with a seven-day maturity from weekly to daily.

"Reducing tensions in global financing markets"

Swaps are an important "liquidity hedge to ease tensions in global financing markets and thus help mitigate the impact of such tensions on the supply of credit to households and businesses," the statement said.

Shortly before, the major Swiss bank UBS had announced that it would take over the stumbling competitor for three billion francs. UBS and Credit Suisse are among the 30 banks worldwide classified as "too big to fail" because their insolvency would have a devastating impact on the global economy as a whole.

Credit Suisse had recently come under further pressure after a series of previous scandals – including the closure of the two US banks Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, which had worried the financial sector. Statements by Credit Suisse's largest shareholder, Saudi National Bank of Saudi Arabia, that it did not want to increase investment in Switzerland's second-largest bank, then sent the share price plummeting.