Credit Suisse sets up a separate Swiss subsidiary as crisis lifeboat
CREDIT Suisse said yesterday it was setting up a Swiss subsidiary by mid-2015, a move that would make it easier to break up the bank in the event of a severe crisis.
The move would cover primarily wealth management, retail and corporate and institutional clients and its product and sales hub in Switzerland, the country’s second biggest bank said in a statement.
It follows a similar move by the country’s biggest bank UBS, which said in October it would set up a new Swiss subsidiary, also by mid-2015, as a lifeboat for its Swiss retail and small business banking activities and some of its private bank.
Switzerland voted a too-big-to-fail law to make it easier to break up its big banks in a crisis after the government had to bail out UBS during the global financial turmoil of 2008.
Credit Suisse said yesterday it would more closely align the booking of its investment banking business to the region in which that business originates, allowing it to meet future requirements for global recovery and resolution planning and make its operational infrastructure more efficient.
It also said the UK would remain the hub of its investment banking business.