​Credit Suisse on the brink ​

Shares in major investment bank Credit Suisse plunged by 24 per cent last night as the financial institution teetered on the brink.

Trading in Credit Suisse – the world’s seventh largest investment bank – was suspended several times as stock plummeted, sparking a worrying ripple effect that saw shares in other European banks fall too.

Stocks in the Swiss bank fell to 1.68 Swiss francs – the lowest price in its history.

It comes as the CEO of major investment firm Blackrock said the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), which started the economic jitters, could be the beginning of a “slow moving crisis”.

Credit Suisse Chairman Axel Lehmann told finance website Bloomberg on Wednesday that the bank would not need “state assistance” to stay afloat as it had “already taken the medicine”, referring to changes made after the it reported an $8 billion loss for 2022.

The US Treasury Department has said it is monitoring the situation at Credit Suisse.

A troubling cascade of plunging shares also saw stocks in France’s Société Générale and UBS fall by more than 10 per cent.

Germany’s Deutsche Bank also saw its shares fall in value by 6.4 per cent. Shares in Swiss bank UBS plummeted by 6.2 per cent and Spanish bank Santander’s share price dropped 5 per cent. In the UK, Barclays bank shares fell by 6.5 per cent.

Britain’s FTSE 100 share index fell by 3.8 per cent with New York’s Dow Jones index down 1.8 per cent.