
Good morning
Credit Suisse announced overnight that it will take a loan worth up to £44.5 billion from Switzerland's central bank.
It comes amid growing fears of a global banking crisis spreading out from the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank last week.
5 things to start your day
1) Budget 2023: the most important points from Jeremy Hunt's speech | Spring Budget summary: free childcare expansion, lifetime allowance abolished
2) Winners and losers from the Budget 2023 – and what it means for your money | See how it affects you and use our calculators to see if you will be better off
3) Hunt accused of ‘a tax on the City’ as he battles to boost business investment | Britain will become the first major European country to bring in ‘full expensing’
4) More banks could go under, warns Larry Fink | Influential investor says it's too early to tell how far the crisis will spread
5) Bank of England in emergency talks as crisis deepens at Credit Suisse | Instability contrasts with the improving picture the Chancellor painted in his maiden Budget
What happened overnight
Credit Suisse announced that it will borrow up to 50 billion Swiss francs (£44.5bn; $54bn) from Switzerland's central bank to reinforce the group after its shares plunged. In a statement, the troubled bank said it was also making buyback offers on about 2.8 billion francs of debt.
Asian markets dropped on Thursday, led again by banks, with contagion talk sweeping across trading floors owing to fears about European giant Credit Suisse.
Credit Suisse stock plunged as much as 30pc to a record low overnight. The Swiss franc suffered its biggest drop on the US dollar in seven years.
Already jittery investors have been in panic mode since the collapse of two regional US banks over the weekend sparked a sell-off across equities and ramped up concerns of a global recession.
The developments sent shivers through markets as memories of the global financial crisis came flooding back.
Japan's Sumitomo Mitsui Financial and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial plummeted more than 4pc apiece, while South Korea's Hana Financial Group gave up nearly 3pc and HSBC dropped more than 2pc.
Hong Kong gave up more than 2pc, while Tokyo, Sydney, Shanghai, Seoul, Singapore, Wellington, Taipei, Manila and Jakarta were also well down.
In other news overnight, the US has told TikTok’s owners in China to sell their shares or risk a ban of the popular video-sharing app, people familiar with the matter said. The latest move is a major escalation in the long-running standoff over privacy concerns around Chinese control of its data and algorithm.