Swiss creditThe Saudi National Bank’s largest shareholder said the market turmoil in shares of the Swiss lender was “unjustified”.
“Unfortunately, when you look at how the entire banking sector collapsed, a lot of people were just looking for excuses,” National Bank of Saudi Arabia governor Ammar Al Khudairy told CNBC’s Hadley Gamble on Thursday.
“It’s panic, a little bit of panic. Totally unfair, I think, whether for Credit Suisse or for the market as a whole,” he said on CNBC’s Capital Connection.
His comments come hours after Credit Suisse announced it was taking “decisive action” to borrow up to 50 billion Swiss francs ($53.68 billion). Shares of the lender fell on Wednesday after a report that the Saudi bank said it could not provide any more financial support to Credit Suisse.
He added that the recent fallout from the Silicon Valley bank collapse differed from the 2008 financial crisis and said the measures taken by US regulators to protect depositors had contained further contagion fears.
“We had a retirement last week but that has nothing to do with what we saw in 2008. This is just an isolated incident, regulators have cut off any possibility of spillover,” he said.
message has not changed
The head of the National Bank of Saudi Arabia told CNBC that Credit Suisse had not applied for any financial assistance.
“There have been no discussions with Credit Suisse about providing assistance,” he said.
“I don’t know where the word ‘help’ comes from, there have been no talks at all since October,” he said.
He reiterated that the bank would not increase its stake beyond the current 9.9%.
“The message hasn’t changed, it’s been the same since October,” he said. “Even if we wanted to, there are too many complications from a regulatory and compliance perspective,” he said.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/16/saudi-national-bank-says-panic-over-credit-suisse-is-unwarranted.html
