Credit Suisse, Switzerland's second-largest bank, may not exist on Monday morning as it currently does.
That's according to Chris Johns, former Chief Economist of the Bank of Ireland.
Credit Suisse announced on Wednesday it had found "material weaknesses" in its financial reporting processes for 2021 and 2022.
A major shareholder, Saudi National Bank, said it would not provide any further financial assistance causing the value of the bank to fall by 30%.
The Swiss Central Bank stepped in to provide funding of 50 billion Swiss francs (€51bn).
This followed a tumultuous week in the US, where a group of 11 major banks provided US$30 billion (€28.25bn) of cash in an effort to end the crisis of confidence around First Republic, a regional lender.
This also followed the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.
Mr Johns told The Anton Savage Show the liquidity injection to Credit Suisse may not be enough to save it.
"It's not at all clear that Credit Suisse is going to survive the weekend as an entity," he said.
"At the moment, the Swiss authorities are trying to merge them into UBS - the other big, Swiss bank.
"[UBS] itself is the result of a merger between, a few years ago, two other Swiss banks - one of whom was in an awful lot of trouble.
"We've been here before, we've seen this movie play out before.
"So there is a serious probability that Credit Suisse will not exist on Monday morning, at least in the form that it existed last night".
Wider problems
Mr Johns said no one wants to admit this could be the start of something bigger, harking back to 2008.
"The problem is we can't say it," he said.
"I watched a TV programme last night where two global financial experts... were asked this question: 'Is this shades of 2008, are we starting the next big one?'
"They both said, cautiously, 'No we don't think so'.
"The reason why those kinds of experts have to say 'No we don't think so'- and in particular why government regulators have to say it's an isolated bank - is it's only going to take one or two of these people to jump up and down and start saying, 'Yes, this is the big one'.
"If somebody important says that this is the big one, it could be the cause.
"It could be a self-sustaining prophecy - so nobody wants to upset the apple cart.
"Nobody wants to be that person that we look back on and say, 'Actually you started all of this'.
"People are quite rightly saying, 'Nothing to see here, move on' - but believe me, these people are very, very scared that this could be the start of the big one," he added.
Listen back to the full interview below:
