Credit Suisse, the Swiss bank, emerged relatively unscathed from the global credit crunch today despite booking a further SwFr1.3 billion (£604 million) writedown relating to the global credit crunch.

The bank's total credit crunch losses in 2007 now total SwFr2 billion, well below the losses booked by banking rivals such as UBS and Deutsche Bank.

This pushed fourth-quarter pre-tax profits down 49 per cent to to SwFr1.33 billion, but for the whole year profits were up 4 per cent at SwFr14.9 billion, although net profit was down 25 per cent at SwFr8.5 billion.

Trading revenue for the year was 22 per cent down at SwFr7.33 billion after these dropped from SwFr2.96 billion in the fourth-quarter to SwFr457 million.

Brady W. Dougan, the chief executive, said that during the quarter the bank had "contained the impact of the credit-market dislocation in investment banking and increased revenues from the previous quarter".

He added: "I am pleased to announce record results for 2007 which we achieved in an extremely challenging environment."

Net new money in wealth management in the fourth quarter came in almost 40 per cent higher than the same quarter last year at SwFr12 billion.

However, the bank's shares plunged 4 per cent to SwFr53.85 on fears that it may not complete its buyback programme in 2008 and concerns over the possibility of further writedowns.

The bank said that it was now "less likely" that the buyback progamme would be completed this year.

The rival UBS, which will report its quarterly and full-year results on Thursday, has already revealed that its fourth-quarter sub-prime-related writedowns are likely to be about $14 billion (£7.2 billion).

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