Swiss govt doubles size of coronavirus loan scheme to $41 bln

The Swiss government is doubling the size of its coronavirus emergency loan scheme to 40 billion Swiss francs ($40.94 billion) after being flooded by requests for help by businesses, it said on Friday.

The government said it was expanding bridging loan guarantees from an initial 20 billion francs after banks made loans of 14.3 billion francs in the first few days of the scheme. So far more than 76,000 agreements have been made, the government said. ($1 = 0.9770 Swiss francs)