Credit Suisse delays filing its annual report, reviving fears about the Swiss bank's finances

• Credit Suisse has delayed filing its annual report after a call from the US financial watchdog.
• Investors are fretting about the Swiss banking giant's finances after back-to-back annual losses.
• Shares fell 5% in premarket trading Thursday, having slumped to a record low last week.

Credit Suisse delayed filing its annual earnings Thursday after getting questions from the US's financial watchdog, which fired up investors' fears about its overall health.

The Swiss bank said Thursday that the Securities and Exchange Commission had made a "late call" to ask for further information about cash flow statements it provided in 2019 and 2020.

"Management believes it is prudent to briefly delay the publication of its accounts in order to understand more thoroughly the comments received," Credit Suisse said.

Credit Suisse's 2022 financial statements — which were published last month and showed it making an annual loss for a second consecutive year — weren't affected by the SEC's comments, the bank added.

Zurich-listed shares fell just under 5% in European trading hours, while the bank's American depositary receipts were down 5.5% at $2.74 ahead of Thursday's opening bell.

The delay comes with investors fretting about Credit Suisse's overall financial health.

The bank posted its largest annual loss since the 2008 financial crisis last month and its former No. 1 shareholder Harris Associates has exited its entire stake over the past few months, according to the Financial Times.

Credit Suisse ADRs have plunged 61% over the past year, with a restructuring plan announced on October 27 also failing to reassure markets of the bank's resilience.

The SEC comments that have delayed Credit Suisse's annual report are about accounting issues it identified in 2021, which showed it was understating parts of its balance sheet and cash flow statements.

"We have generally not focused on cash flow statements; the amounts are relatively small and the restatement was previously disclosed," RBC banks analyst Anke Reingen said, per the Financial Times.

"However, questions with respect to accounting, especially from the SEC, are negative, especially as the Credit Suisse press release points to SEC questions with respect to related controls of the revisions," she added.

The SEC's late call isn't Credit Suisse's only regulatory worry. Swiss watchdog Finma is currently scrutinizing potentially misleading comments made by its chairman Axel Lehmann, according to a Reuters report published last month.

Speaking not long after the bank disclosed that its clients had pulled out as much as 84 billion Swiss francs (then about $88 billion) in the first weeks of the fourth quarter, Lehman told the Financial Times that outflows had "completely flattened out" and Bloomberg TV that they "basically have stopped".

Finma is probing whether Lehmann knew that clients were still withdrawing funds when he made those comments in early December, per Reuters.

Read more: Credit Suisse is fending off concerns about its financial health, fanning fears of another Lehman Brothers moment that could roil the global financial system. Here's what's happening, and what it means.