PCP
What the 109 billion francs represented
The headline total combined two different commitment credits. A federal guarantee of 100 billion francs covered default risk on specified Swiss National Bank liquidity assistance loans. A separate guarantee of up to 9 billion protected UBS against certain losses on Credit Suisse assets. An authorised ceiling is neither a full cash payment nor a recorded loss. Treating these as interchangeable prevents a serious assessment of the intervention.
In its dossier published on 19 December 2024, the Federal Department of Finance states that the guarantees ended on 11 August 2023 without federal losses arising from them. That result matters. It does not retrospectively remove the risk accepted when the commitments were made several months earlier.
Banking continuity is a collective function
Households and businesses depend on access to deposits and payment services. A loss of confidence can accelerate withdrawals and create an immediate liquidity need. This must be distinguished from a bank’s lasting ability to absorb losses. Secured lending, protection against default and the absorption of a loss are different operations.
Public intervention can be justified by protecting functions essential to the wider economy. It does not follow that every interest of shareholders or managers deserves equivalent protection. Payment continuity, basic banking access and finance for productive activity have a different priority from preventing all private losses. That hierarchy needs to be established before a crisis, when accelerating withdrawals make negotiation difficult.
Acquisition by another large bank can keep infrastructure and customer relationships operating. It also raises a concentration question. Reducing the immediate danger does not demonstrate that the resulting banking structure will reduce every future dependency. Immediate stabilisation and long-term organisation require separate assessments.
Urgency changes procedure, not accountability
On 19 March 2023, the Finance Delegation approved the two emergency commitment credits. Its contemporaneous statement describes scrutiny of legality, necessity, unpredictability and urgency. This was concentrated parliamentary oversight in circumstances where the ordinary budget process did not provide the timetable sought by the authorities.
Speed can prevent disruption to payments. It makes subsequent documented scrutiny more important. That scrutiny must distinguish information available at the decision from information learned after stabilisation. Judging only by the final outcome encourages opposite mistakes: declaring every intervention justified because it did not exhaust its ceiling, or labelling the entire authorised guarantee a loss.
Useful public reporting explains the scenarios examined, the selection criteria, obligations imposed on beneficiaries and exit conditions. Some commercial information may require temporary protection. This should not become a permanent barrier to accounting for collective commitments.
Financial exit leaves institutional questions open
The August termination ended the specific risks covered by the guarantees. It does not establish what every alternative would have cost. Independent resolution, liquidation or public ownership would each require assumptions about deposit outflows, international cooperation and available assets. Without those assumptions, giving a rejected scenario a certain price is a political assertion rather than a demonstrated comparison.
It is nevertheless possible to set verifiable requirements for future interventions: resources that actually absorb losses, assets usable for liquidity, operational continuity plans and powers the authorities can exercise in practice. A resolution plan is useful only if it can be applied at the real speed of a crisis. The existence of a document alone does not prove that capacity.
Employees and customers also bear restructuring consequences despite not having determined risky strategies. Public assessment should examine regional banking services, business credit conditions and employment transitions. These effects cannot be read from the balance of a guarantee alone.
Protecting a function creates a claim to oversight
For the PCP, the lesson of 2023 is to connect exceptional public protection with corresponding control over purpose, duration and beneficiaries. Society must know which functions are guaranteed and which decisions remain private. A guarantee must not become an implicit entitlement to transfer a strategy’s extreme losses back to the population.
Practical options must also be prepared before the next emergency: keeping payments running, preserving necessary data, assigning responsibilities and holding managers accountable under the law. Ownership arrangements deserve concrete debate about these capabilities. Collective protection gains legitimacy when it can explain what it prevented, the risk it accepted and the changes that follow.