DislikedHere are two links regarding this issue (I'm guessing that zero hedge might have a more colorful take on this)...
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Strong....html?x=0&.v=1
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-0...mortgages.html
This could be a dumb question, but are we sure that these loans are to Swiss banks? Couldn't it be a Hungarian or Romanian bank that agreed to take out the loan in a foreign currency?Ignored
But the mortgagee will owe a Hungarian bank who will have borrowed Francs from a Swiss bank.
As long as the Hungarian bank doesn't go bust the Swiss bank will be ok.
Of course if all the Hugarian mortgagees default everyone has a problem.
IMHO this is Europes/Switzerlands sub-prime and it'll blow soon. And it's not just E Europe, there are bigger problems in the PIIGS countries.