So, is Credit Suisse considered "too big to fail?" If no, are there any ramifications if it were to collapse? It seems like the writing has been on the wall for a while now, so I would hope preparations have been made and it would not be catastrophic, but it's honestly a little crazy to see a ~170 year old institution getting this close to shuttering.
In theory, after the 2008 bailout, the Swiss people were promised that this would be the last time, and next time the bank(s) in question would be wound down.
I'm not super optimistic this actually is going to happen. On the other hand, in contrast to 2008, UBS, the other large bank, is not in crisis right now, so the argument that it's an enterprise rather than a sector problem is much stronger.
There will certainly be ramifications. Whether CS is "too big to fail" will determine the extent of those ramifications. TBTF generally means that a bank's failure is liable to bring down the entire economy. But any large bank, even if not strictly speaking TBTF, will cause plenty of pain if it fails, both for those who save/invest with it and those who rely on it for financing.
There may be Swiss people proud of Swiss banking as an abstract concept, but I'd be surprised if much of that extended to Credit Suisse in particular as a concrete bank. Given that the overall economy is quite good, there might be a certain appetite even in business friendly circles to let a badly run bank fail pour encourager les autres, but its size would make such a failure fairly difficult to handle.
