UBS has agreed to buy Credit Suisse. “With the takeover of Credit Suisse by UBS, a solution has been found to secure financial stability and protect the Swiss economy in this exceptional situation,” read a statement from the Swiss National Bank, which pledged a loan of up to 100 billion ($108 billion) Swiss francs to support the combination.

The takeover of the country’s two largest banks was facilitated by the Swiss government, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority FINMA and the Swiss National Bank, the statement said. No amount was given in the initial statement.

The UBS deal was rushed together before markets reopened for trading Monday after Credit Suisse shares logged their worst weekly decline since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. The losses came despite a new a loan of up to 50 billion Swiss francs ($54 billion) granted from the Swiss central bank to halt the slide and restore confidence of the bank’s counterparties in the financial markets.

According to CNBC, Credit Suisse’s scale and potential impact on the global economy is much greater than U.S. regional banks, which pressured Swiss regulators to find a way to bring the country’s two largest financial institutions together.

Credit Suisse’s balance sheet is around twice the size of Lehman Brothers when it collapsed, at around 530 billion Swiss francs as of the end of 2022. It is also far more globally interconnected, with multiple international subsidiaries — making an orderly management of Credit Suisse’s situation even more important.

UBS initially offered to buy Credit Suisse for around $1 billion Sunday, according to multiple media reports.

Credit Suisse lost around 38% of its deposits in the fourth quarter of 2022 and revealed in its delayed annual report early last week that outflows have still yet to reverse. It reported a full-year net loss of 7.3 billion Swiss francs for 2022 and expects a further “substantial” loss in 2023.

The bank had previously announced a massive strategic overhaul in a bid to address these chronic issues, with current CEO and Credit Suisse veteran Ulrich Koerner taking over in July.

Job losses are expected at Credit Suisse’s UK office

Meanwhile, Job losses are expected at Credit Suisse’s UK office after the sale of the Swiss bank to its bigger rival UBS on Sunday.

Credit Suisse employs around 5,500 people in the UK, based in London’s Canary Wharf, which includes investment bankers, wealth and asset managers, as well as staff across teams such as technology, risk and compliance.

UBS has about 6,200 people in the UK with offices in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle and Edinburgh.

The former chief executive of UBS in the UK, Mark Yallop, said he thinks job losses will be “inevitable” as a result of the merger and chopping down the investment bank.

He told the BBC’s Today programme: “The two firms together employ about 120,000 staff, of which about 11,000 sit in London, and I think it’s inevitable that a merger of this sort will result in some further job losses.

“I would imagine those would be concentrated in the risky investment banking business at Credit Suisse which is partly the cause of the problems the firms is experiencing.