Credit Suisse Withdraws Pan-European Brokerage Service In Favour Of Country-Specific Solutions

by Ulrika Lomas, Tax-news.com, Brussels

30 April 2001

Credit Suisse, the Zurich-based financial services giant, announced last week a major overhaul of its European online brokerage services. Essentially, Credit Suisse is to discontinue its pan-European online brokerage platform and will focus instead on the further expansion of its multi-channel offering - with local Internet services - in key European markets.

Credit Suisse will withdraw creditsuissedirect.com (formerly credit-suisse.net), its Luxembourg-based vehicle for a single pan-European broking operation, in favour of pursuing specific country solutions. This is why Credit Suisse agreed earlier this month to acquire online Spanish broker and financial services group General de Valores y Cambios (GVC). Credit Suisse has offerings in Switzerland under the Credit Suisse brand and an established online broker in the UK in the form of DLJdirect.

Credit Suisse said the move to discontinue creditsuissedirect.com is in line with the rapid progress achieved in the development of the group's Personal Finance multi-channel offering in key European markets. Further factors, the group said, include the sharp decrease in demand for purely online services and fiercer competition in the online brokerage market.

Even though creditsuissedirect.com has only been operational since November 2000, it was clearly illogical for the company to keep both individual country solutions and the overall European broker operation in competition with each other given current market conditions. The platform will close on June 30 2001. Credit Suisse said that mutually acceptable solutions for employees in Luxembourg are being sought by the group in conjunction with local employee representatives.

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