KKS deserves much more respect

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We Swiss love to look for hair in soup. It’s not bad at all. But this is not always fair.

People like to shoot at banks and bankers – and rightly so. The astronomically high bonuses paid to managers can hardly be justified. They are even outrageous when the bank suffers losses and is forced to lay off employees – as was the case in recent years at Credit Suisse.

In CS, those responsible did a lot of bad things that could even come to that. The Board of Directors has ultimate responsibility. But politicians, the Financial Market Authority (Finma) and the National Bank (SNB) also failed to take countermeasures in time. Harsh criticism and questions are justified.

At the same time, another perspective has been ignored in the past two weeks: a woman who has been in power for only three months has saved the world from a possible global financial crisis.

Karin Keller-Sutter, abbreviated KKS, this month received a call to the post of Treasury Secretary in a degree that federal advisers are rarely capable of. In a few days and hours, she established the necessary contacts and put sworn rivals at the negotiating table. And most importantly, she came to an impressive result, given the circumstances.

When KKS says that the CS takeover by UBS is the best of all bad decisions, they are right. The alternative—nationalization of Credit Suisse—would create huge risks for taxpayers.

KKS didn’t shine at the press conference two weeks ago. But she was the only one at the long table who made a strong impression. She explained the deal to the hundreds of thousands of people who tuned in that evening, to the point and made it clear.

Unlike other representatives at the table, she subsequently did not go into hiding. KKS was her wife, openly and confidentially communicated in the media.

This is how crisis communication works. This is how you create trust. If those responsible for the CC in recent years communicated in this way, there would hardly have been such a loss of confidence in the bank.

We will never know if CS’ bankruptcy or messy takeover would lead to a global financial crisis, as KKS repeatedly claims. What is certain is that the turmoil in world markets would be severe.

Also thanks to the Swiss finance minister, stock markets around the world temporarily calmed down. So I must say: well done, Karin Keller-Sutter.

Source: Blick