Credit Suisse makes £1.27bn as pay and bonuses rise

Credit Suisse today announced profits of SwFr2.1 billion (£1.27 billion) in the first quarter.

The Swiss bank, which got through the financial crisis without a taxpayer bail-out, saw a net inflow of funds, unlike its rival UBS which has been hit by American investigations into offshore accounts.

Profits in investment banking, which includes most of Credit Suisse's 6,000 London staff, dropped from SwFr2.4 billion year ago to SwFr1.8 billion but were well up on the final quarter's SwFr one billion.

Pay and bonuses jumped from SwFr870 million in the fourth quarter of last year to SwFr2.32 billion but the bank said the proportion of investment banking revenues paid out had fallen from 48% to 44% over the last year.

Brady Dougan, the chief executive, said: "Market conditions in the second quarter to date have remained similar to those in the first quarter and we are confident that our business model will enable us to continue to generate high-quality results in good as well as more challenging conditions."