UBS's takeover of Credit Suisse halted crisis, says Swiss central bank

The Swiss central bank hiked its key interest rate on Thursday and insisted that a government-orchestrated takeover of troubled Credit Suisse by rival bank UBS ended the financial turmoil.

In a statement, the Swiss National Bank said it is providing large amounts of support for the deal to merge Switzerland's biggest banks and that the late Sunday announcement by the federal government, financial regulators and the central bank put a halt to the crisis.

An insolvency of Credit Suisse would have had severe consequences for national and international financial stability and for the Swiss economy, said Thomas Jordan, chairman of the Swiss central bank's governing board. Taking this risk would have been irresponsible.

The hastily arranged, USD 3.25 billion deal aimed to stem the upheaval in the global financial system after the collapse of two US banks and jitters about long-running troubles at Credit Suisse led shares of Switzerland's second-largest bank to tank and customers to pull o