Swiss Finance Minister Karin Keller-Sutter defended the swift merger of the country's two largest banks in an interview with the local newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung, stating, "Using emergency law was necessary to stabilize the situation." She added, "Without a solution, payment transactions with Credit Suisse in Switzerland would have been severely disrupted, and it might have collapsed, making it impossible to pay salaries and bills."
Keller-Sutter confirmed that the Swiss Federal Council acted "extremely necessary to achieve the goal of stability." In her explanation regarding the urgency of finding a solution to the bank's problems, she stated, "Credit Suisse would not have lasted until Monday," and added, "If we hadn’t acted, Credit Suisse's shares would have been worthless on Monday, and shareholders would have gone home empty-handed."
It was announced last Sunday that UBS Bank agreed to acquire its competitor, Credit Suisse, for shares valued at three billion Swiss francs ($3.23 billion) and both banks agreed to take on losses of up to five billion francs ($5.4 billion) in a merger organized by Swiss authorities to prevent further market disruptions related to global banking services.
