Switzerland’s new megabank is bad news for Swiss bankers

At a press conferenceubsgdp in Bern on March 19th the chairmen of and , the two great rivals of Swiss banking, announced a momentous but unhappy union. After days of haggling, and years of creeping despair, regulators tried to avert crisis by rushing through a tie-up of banks with combined assets worth twice as much as Switzerland’s .The transaction concluded a bewildering descent for Credit Suisse, as its depositors and counterparties lost faith over the course of a working week. The banking system survived, even if 167 years of Swiss banking history did not. Now attention has turned to the impact of the hastily written terms of the deal—and the prospects for Switzerland’s new banking supergroup.