Swiss central bank promises more interest rate transparency

SNB to publish a kind of meeting minutes in future Keystone-SDA

The Swiss National Bank (SNB) will be more open on how it arrives at interest rate decisions in future.

+Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox

From the next quarterly monetary policy assessment, the SNB intends to publish “monetary policy discussions” by the governing board in summarised form – four weeks after the decision is made.

The most important points from the discussions during the two-day monetary policy assessment and the assessment of the economic and currency situation will be published.

+ Trump’s tariffs raise risk of negative interest rates in Switzerland

This is what SNB President Martin Schlegel said on Wednesday at an event organised by the Ticino Bankers Association, according to the speech transcript. Communication is “a central element in the fulfilment of our mandate”. The SNB has therefore decided to publish a new summary of monetary policy discussions in addition to the existing means of communication.

The past few years have shown how quickly economic conditions can change, such as pandemics and global trade policy. “It is important that the public understands how we apply our concept to the current circumstances in order to ensure price stability,” said Schlegel.

Collective decision

However, the SNB will not provide details on individual votes in future. The governing board of the central bank – like the Federal Council and the cantonal governments – is a collegial authority. The deliberations and the interest rate decision will therefore be presented collectively.

This is because it is important that the monetary authorities can discuss the interest rate decision openly. Publication should not prevent individuals from expressing their opinions freely. Each member of the executive board contributes their own views, after which a joint decision should be made and defended as one.

It is true that transparency strengthens the credibility of the SNB and “enables the public to understand our actions”, says Schlegel. However, more transparency is “not always better”.

International standard

By publishing a summary of its meetings, the SNB is following an international trend. “It has become standard practice for central banks to report on their monetary policy discussions,” said Schlegel.

Both the US Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank (ECB) publish the minutes of their interest rate meetings. The SNB’s next monetary policy assessment is on September 25.

Translated from German by DeepL/mga

How we work

We select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools to translate them into English. A journalist then reviews the translation for clarity and accuracy before publication.  

Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. The news stories we select have been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team from news agencies such as Bloomberg or Keystone.

If you have any questions about how we work, write to us at [e-mail]