Daily Digest - 20 March 2023

Headlines

▌UBS acquires Credit Suisse for 3 billion Swiss francs

UBS today announced the acquisition of Credit Suisse for 3 billion Swiss francs. Substantial liquidity assistance will be provided to support UBS' acquisition of Credit Suisse. Both UBS and Credit Suisse will have unlimited access to the Swiss National Bank's existing facilities. The acquisition was made possible with the support of the Swiss Federal Government, Swiss financial market regulator Finma and the Swiss National Bank. The SNB said it could provide up to 100 billion Swiss francs in liquidity assistance loans to Credit Suisse, with federal default guarantees.

Policies

▌Buffett and the Biden administration are communicating on the banking crisis

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Chairman Warren Buffett has been in talks with senior officials of the Biden administration as the regional banking crisis continues to simmer. In 2011, the Bank of America Corporation received a capital infusion from Buffett after losses related to subprime mortgages sent its shares tumbling. Buffett also threw a $5 billion lifeline at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to shore up the bank after Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. collapsed in 2008. Buffett has also made a $12 billion bet on Bank of America. (Bloomberg)

▌Federal Reserve: Global central banks will increase liquidity through dollar swap agreements

The Federal Reserve stated that in order to improve the effectiveness of the US dollar swap agreements, the central banks that are currently involved have agreed to increase the frequency of these currency swap operations from weekly to daily, and the increase will be implemented on Monday. The operation has started and will continue until at least the end of April. The U.S. Federal Reserve and the U.K., Canada, Japan, European Central Bank and Swiss National Bank have also announced coordinated action to increase the supply of liquidity through U.S. dollar liquidity swap lines, the Fed said.

Blockchain application

▌Bandai Namco’s Web3 Metaverse Fund invests in game studio SuperGaming

Japanese game publisher Bandai Namco Entertainment has used its "Bandai Namco Entertainment 021 Fund" of the Web3 Metaverse Fund to invest in SuperGaming, a game studio that cooperates with Google Cloud, Bandai Namco Entertainment said in a statement Said that this investment will further expand its business in the Asian IP market. 

Although the amount of this investment has not been publicly disclosed, the fund usually invests between 10 million yen and 500 million yen. The Bandai Namco Entertainment 021 Fund was established in April last year. It mainly supports start-up companies that build an "IP universe". It has also previously invested in DeepMotion, a digital character solution that provides AI-driven motion capture and real-time body tracking.

Cryptocurrency

▌Cryptocurrency ATM service under attack

According to General Bytes official Twitter, the General Bytes encrypted currency ATM service was attacked on March 17 and 18. The attacker used the upload interface in the system to upload and run a malicious Java program, granting him user privileges that allowed him access funds hot wallets on the system. According to statistics from Slow Mist MistTrack, the loss amounts to around 1.8 million US dollars.General Bytes has also previously experienced a security incident in August 2022, but officials did not disclose whether any cryptocurrencies were stolen.