Credit Suisse red-faced over accounting “error”

Credit Suisse has shrugged off the accounting error Keystone

Credit Suisse has been forced to restate its earnings for 2003 after an embarrassing accounting error, which the bank dismissed as a one-off.

Switzerland’s second-largest bank said the “very unfortunate” error meant its earnings for last year were around SFr200 million ($156.5 million) lower than originally stated.

Credit Suisse said on Friday that the mistake was down to a data input error, as the bank tried to ease potential worries among investors that it was something more serious.

Markets have shown themselves to be increasingly sensitive to accounting issues, following the recent Parmalat scandal and bookkeeping problems at the Swiss-based employment firm, Adecco.

Shares in Credit Suisse fell on Friday by up to two per cent.

“It’s a one-time error,” said Zurich Cantonal Bank analyst Christoph Ritschard. “That is embarrassing but won’t have any big effects.”

“It’s simply a mistake. It could have been a typo in a spreadsheet. You can’t compare this to Adecco.”

“We took action”

Although seen as largely benign, the error will grate with the bank’s desire to restore investor confidence, undermined one year ago when Credit Suisse declared its largest-ever loss.

The bank’s revised results now mean its net profit fell to SFr956 million in the last three months of 2003 from the originally reported SFr1.166 billion.

“This is a one-point error,” said chief financial officer Phil Ryan. “There is no systematic aspect to it, there is no intent, there is no evidence that there was an attempt to improve earnings,” he said.

“We found it, we caught it a couple of days ago, and we took action.”

swissinfo with agencies

In brief

Credit Suisse revised its 2003 earnings down around SFr200 million after admitting an accounting error.

But the bank stressed there were no widespread accounting problems.

Analysts accepted the mistake as an embarrassing “one-off”.