Finance Minister Karin Keller-Sutter said Sunday that Switzerland's economy would probably have collapsed if Credit Suisse had gone bankrupt.
Keller-Sutter told an interview with Le Temps newspaper that the government had acted in the country's best interests in swiftly arranging the takeover of Switzerland's second-biggest bank by its larger domestic rival, UBS.
Amid fears of a global banking crisis last month, investor confidence in Credit Suisse collapsed on March 15. The government then orchestrated a takeover the weekend before the markets reopened on March 20.
Some 109 billion Swiss francs ($120 billion) have been put on the table between government guarantees and the liquidity made available by the Swiss central bank.
"Given the circumstances, we acted as best as we could to minimize the burden on the state and the taxpayers," Keller-Sutter said.
"Without determined intervention by the authorities, the alternative would have been a bankruptcy of Credit Suisse on Monday morning, accompanied by a probable collapse of the Swiss economy."
Like UBS, Credit Suisse was among the 30 banks deemed essential to the international banking system and, therefore, too big to fail.
But it suffered a string of scandals in recent years, and after three U.S. regional banks collapsed in March, it looked like the weakest link in the chain.
The takeover talks were hastily conducted at Keller-Sutter's Finance Ministry in Bern, and the $3.25 billion deal was announced on the evening of March 19.
"The bank would have gone bankrupt on Monday, March 20. For what? Because over the years, there has been a culture that seems to have created the wrong incentives. Because there have been many scandals," said Keller-Sutter.
As for whether any executives would be brought to justice, she said, "It's difficult and complex."
She said the government's priority was to complete the merger. UBS on Wednesday said it should close the takeover within the coming months.
The Finance Minister said it was too soon to talk about the future structure of the UBS, which will become a mega-bank with some $5 trillion in invested assets.
Keller-Sutter said the government would have to analyze what happened entirely and then adapt the regulations on banks considered too big to fail.
"But there are limits. Let's not forget that ... confidence cannot be regulated."
