Credit Suisse on the defensive after leak about accounts holding over $100 billion

Leaked data accessed by a German newspaper has revealed information about more than 18,000 accounts in Credit Suisse collectively holding more than $100 billion.

Credit Suisse (CSGN.S) was plunged into a dirty money scandal on Monday after media outlets reported the Swiss bank had managed accounts for human rights abusers, fraudsters and businessmen who had been placed under sanctions.

One person leaked information on the accounts, which were held in decades ranging from the 1940s to 2010s, to Germany's Sueddeutsche Zeitung. The German daily then shared it with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project and 46 other news organisations including the New York Times, Britain's Guardian and France's Le Monde.

The Panama Papers-style investigations were published on Sunday and come as Credit Suisse, which denies any wrongdoing, tries to shake off a series of risk-management scandals and a 1.6 billion Swiss franc ($1.75 billion) loss in 2021 that has pummelled its stock.

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The New York Times said the leaked data covered more than 18,000 accounts collectively holding more than $100 billion.

The revelations also turned the spotlight on Switzerland only a little more than three years after it ditched, under U.S. pressure, a centuries-old culture of secrecy that had made the Alpine state a global no-questions-asked vault for the world's rich.

"For CS, even if the allegations are unfounded, this raises questions about its business practices in wealth management and should tie up management having to spend time fighting fires instead of moving forward," RBC analysts said.