Thomas Jordan, the President of the Swiss National Bank (SNB), actually wanted to hold his regular press conference on Thursday as usual at the headquarters on Zurich's Bürkliplatz. But Credit Suisse thwarted his plans. After the SNB pushed the deeply fallen major bank into the arms of its arch-rival UBS on Sunday in close cooperation with the Swiss government and the Financial Market Supervisory Authority (Finma), so many journalists registered on Monday that the central bank had to change venue.

Johannes Ritter

Correspondent for politics and economics in Switzerland.

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The choice fell on the luxury hotel "Baur au Lac", just a stone's throw away. The noble house once gained unpleasant fame far beyond Switzerland's borders: at the end of May 2015, the police took seven allegedly corrupt FIFA officials out of their beds at the crack of dawn and arrested them. This anecdote fits current events insofar as it later emerged that Credit Suisse was indirectly involved in the FIFA corruption scandal.

Self-inflicted decline

It had not or not sufficiently investigated suspicious cash flows from customers close to the world football association for many years. This misconduct was and is exemplary for the self-inflicted demise of the systemically important bank, which is now being rescued with billions of euros in public aid and is absorbed into UBS 167 years after its founding. This is a historic turning point for Switzerland.

Consequently, the rescue and the end of Credit Suisse were clearly in the foreground at the press conference. The central bank president, who has been in great demand these days, was hardly asked a question about the SNB's decision to raise the key interest rate in Switzerland by 0.5 percentage points to 1.5 percent. Rather, the habilitated economist, who 15 years ago – at that time still in his role as SNB Vice President – was also involved in the rescue of UBS, had to listen to critical questions about the backstop solution for Credit Suisse.

The 60-year-old, as always cautious and serious head of the central bank presented the rescue maneuver as without alternative: "A bankruptcy of Credit Suisse would have had serious consequences for national and international financial stability and for the Swiss economy. To risk this would have been irresponsible."

Jordan saw no pressure from abroad

The international crisis of confidence caused by the turmoil in the US banking market had a direct impact on Credit Suisse's liquidity situation on Wednesday last week. The liquidity assistance of CHF 50 billion subsequently granted by the SNB had given the necessary time to find a solution to safeguard financial stability. "This solution had to be worked out under great time pressure in order to be ready before the market opened in Asia this week."