When in 2008 the financial crisis arrived, Switzerland's major bank UBS was suddenly threatened with bankruptcy. Thousands of people in Switzerland, who had mortgage loans with UBS, could lose their homes.
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When not covering fintech, cryptocurrencies, blockchain, banks and trade, swissinfo.ch's business correspondent can be found playing cricket on various grounds in Switzerland - including the frozen lake of St Moritz.
A documentary and animation filmmaker from Bern, Michele studied film at Zurich University of the Arts. He's been a swissinfo.ch video journalist since 2004 and has a special interest in developing new video formats for mobile viewing, mixing animation and documentary styles.
With UBS serving almost 1 in 2 Swiss companies, small businesses were threatened to collapse causing people to lose their jobs. Not to mention the more than 26,000 people working for UBS in Switzerland. Account holders were suddenly faced with losing all their savings. So the government had to intervene. Together with the Swiss national bank they created the stability fund, a bad bank, which would absorb all the toxic assets that threatened to bring down UBS.
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Credit Suisse agrees to CHF3bn takeover by rival Swiss bank UBS
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Ailing Swiss bank Credit Suisse will be taken over by its rival UBS after a frantic last-ditch deal to prevent a catastrophic banking collapse.
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Far from losing money on the $31.8 billion (CHF29 billion) rescue act, the government has already made more than a billion dollars and the Swiss National Bank (SNB) is expected to rake in around $6 billion. The bailout was once hailed by former UBS boss Oswald Grübel as: “The best piece of business the central…
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here. Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.