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The wipeout of $17bn of Credit Suisse bonds has sparked panic among rich Asian investors who had loaded up on the risky bank debt. Under the terms of the UBS takeover of Credit Suisse, orchestrated by the Swiss government on Sunday, Credit Suisse’s additional tier 1 bonds were written down to zero while shareholders received

London’s Metropolitan police is guilty of “institutional racism, misogyny and homophobia” and should be broken up if it cannot effect a complete overhaul, according to one of the most damning ever reviews of a British police force. Baroness Louise Casey was commissioned by the Met to investigate the culture within Britain’s largest police force after

Good morning. Louise Casey’s independent review of the Metropolitan Police’s culture and standards makes grim but predictable reading. It’s a familiar story for the UK’s largest police force, but it may well be different this time. Ill Met “Weary” is police slang to refer to “a woman who complains about the behaviours of male colleagues,

European equities markets closed higher on Monday, with gains for many of the region’s banking stocks. The Stoxx 600 closed 1 per cent higher, while Germany’s Dax added 1.1 per cent and France’s Cac 40 climbed 1.3 per cent. London’s FTSE 100 rose 0.9 per cent. The Euro Stoxx Banks index was up 1.3 per

A senior EU policymaker has pledged not to wrongfoot investors by upending bank creditor hierarchies, after market uproar at Switzerland’s decision to favour shareholders over bondholders in the rescue-takeover of Credit Suisse. Dominique Laboureix, the chair of the Single Resolution Board, the body in charge of shutting down failed banks, said fears that additional tier

UBS’s rescue of Credit Suisse is expected to result in tens of thousands of job cuts, with Switzerland’s financial sector already bracing for a heavy hit from the contentious takeover. Credit Suisse’s domestic business and its investment bank, which collectively employ more than 30,000 staff, are expected to bear the brunt of the cuts, according

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation officials were told in mid-January that Signature Bank, a New York City-based lender with about $90bn in deposits, was in trouble. A letter from a short seller, who stood to make money if Signature’s share price fell, warned that the bank lacked basic controls. One example: Signature in April 2020 made

Asian equities pushed higher with European stocks set to follow on Tuesday morning as investors assessed the risk of contagion in the financial system after the takeover of Credit Suisse. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index added 0.8 per cent and China’s CSI 300 gained 1 per cent. South Korea’s Kospi and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 added

Banks are designed to fail. And so they do. Governments want them to be both safe places for the public to keep their money and profit-seeking takers of risk. They are at one and the same time regulated utilities and risk-taking enterprises. The incentives for management incline them towards risk-taking, just as the incentives for

Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping will place their growing economic ties at the heart of talks in the Kremlin on Tuesday, highlighting Moscow’s dependence on Beijing after its economy was largely severed from the west. The Russian president hailed China’s economic model as “much more effective” than that of other countries, a recognition of the

Shares in First Republic tumbled again on Monday after its credit rating was cut for the second time in the space of a week, a decision that came following depositors pulling tens of billions of dollars from their accounts. The bank’s shares, which have fallen more than 80 per cent in March, were down 30

Jeremy Hunt, chancellor, was on Monday night urged by the opposition Labour party to tell MPs what he is doing in conjunction with the Bank of England to ensure the stability of the British banking system. Tulip Siddiq, shadow City minister, wrote to Hunt saying he had a duty to the public and the UK

The emergency call from the Swiss establishment came at 4pm on Thursday. Colm Kelleher, a rambunctious Irish banking executive who has been chair of UBS since last April, had been planning to celebrate St Patrick’s Day on Friday before watching Ireland play England at rugby on Saturday at a pub in Zurich. He was hoping

The Swiss government has come under fire from bondholders and international regulators for its handling of the $3.2bn rescue-takeover of Credit Suisse by UBS. The two banks were forced together over the weekend by Swiss officials in a shotgun marriage that stabilised the teetering Credit Suisse but wiped out $17bn of its bonds, upending the

For most people in Switzerland, the news that Credit Suisse was to be saved from collapse by local rival UBS was met with stunned disbelief. Even the financially tuned denizens of Paradeplatz, Zurich’s banking centre, had happily gone into the weekend with no clue that the lender — regarded as a national institution — was

Having spent the first decade of my career working in a bank and then becoming a top-rated bank analyst*, I find that people often express surprise that I never invest in bank shares. But I think it is precisely because I understand banks that I never invest in their shares. Recent events surrounding the collapse of

To paraphrase the former Bank of England governor Mervyn King, most banks are global in life but national in death. This is certainly true for Credit Suisse. After a weekend of intense negotiations, Swiss authorities brokered an emergency deal to sell the troubled 167-year-old institution to its more successful Swiss rival, UBS. A SFr50bn ($54bn)

The UK regulatory pendulum has been halted in mid-swing. The direction of travel for bank regulation in recent years has clearly been in the financial services sector’s favour. Aided by a government eager to find benefits of post-Brexit regulatory freedom, there has been a sense of opportunity to tweak or modify, to strip off gold-plating

Federal regulators have extended the bidding period for Silicon Valley Bank, the California lender whose collapse earlier this month sparked a broader banking crisis, while also expanding the pool of institutions they are willing to accept as potential buyers of assets and deposits. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation said on Monday it would accept separate

The sale of Credit Suisse to UBS is the most dramatic moment in global banking since the financial crisis of 2008-09. It has also thrust into the spotlight the reforms that the global financial system has undergone in the past 15 years. Since the last crisis, regulators have sought to transfer more of the risk

Credit Suisse has told staff that it will continue to hand out bonuses and pay rises as planned this year, despite the bank having to be rescued by UBS in a SFr3bn ($3.25bn) deal over the weekend. Shortly after the Swiss lender was saved from bankruptcy on Sunday night, chair Axel Lehmann and chief executive