Credit Suisse Clients Withdraw Billions Ahead of UBS Takeover, Expects Significant Loss for 2023

Customers of the major Swiss bank Credit Suisse cleared their accounts in the months before it was taken over by competitor UBS. In the first three months of the year – especially in the second half of March – 61.2 billion Swiss francs (62.5 billion euros) were withdrawn, as Credit Suisse announced on Monday. Accordingly, the outflows have meanwhile become less, but there is no trend reversal, writes the bank in what will probably be the last quarterly report.

In order to be able to pay customers their money, the institute had to take out large loans from the Swiss National Bank, some of which were guaranteed by the Swiss state. For the current year, the once second-largest Swiss bank is expecting a significant minus. The investment bank, and thus the entire group, will report a significant pre-tax loss for the current quarter and for the full year 2023, according to Credit Suisse.

Its takeover by the largest Swiss bank UBS, announced on March 19, comes at the urging of the government. Credit Suisse had been rocked by scandals for two years. Massive losses followed, dwindling customer and investor confidence and finally financing problems. The quarterly balance now provides information about how difficult the takeover can be for UBS.

Accordingly, Credit Suisse reports a pre-tax profit of CHF 13.8 billion for the first three months of the year – but the main reason is CHF 15 billion, which investors had to write off before the takeover by order of the Swiss financial regulator. They had held high-risk AT1 bonds that were converted into equity as part of the Credit Suisse bailout.