Schweizerische Nationalbank

SNB Governing Board: Martin Schlegel to become Chairman, Antoine Martin Vice Chairman and Petra Tschudin new Member Changes in Department Heads at SNB At its meeting of 26 June 2024, the Federal Council appointed Martin Schlegel as new Chairman of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank and thus as successor to Thomas Jordan. Martin Schlegel will assume office with effect from 1 October 2024 and take over as Head of Department I in Zurich. He has until now served as Vice Chairman of the Governing Board and headed the SNB’s Department II. Effective as of the same date, the Federal Council appointed Antoine Martin, currently Member of the Governing Board and Head of Department III, as Vice Chairman of the Governing Board. He will take over as Head of Department II in Berne. Acting on a proposal from the Bank Council, the Federal Council appointed Petra Tschudin, currently Alternate Member of the Governing Board, as new Member of the Governing Board. She will take over as Head of Department III in Zurich with effect from 1 October 2024. Media release: English: https://lnkd.in/dmX_cXFU Deutsch: https://lnkd.in/d_FEPYVt Français: https://lnkd.in/dw4tGvzB Italiano: https://lnkd.in/dftzDz9A

Monetary policy assessment: A replay of the news conference with the Governing Board is available here: https://lnkd.in/gPHbj6Yh

Monetary policy assessment of 20 June 2024 Swiss National Bank eases monetary policy and lowers SNB policy rate to 1.25% The Swiss National Bank is lowering the SNB policy rate by 0.25 percentage points to 1.25%. The change applies from tomorrow, 21 June 2024. Banks’ sight deposits held at the SNB will be remunerated at the SNB policy rate up to a certain threshold, and at 0.75% above this threshold. The SNB is also willing to be active in the foreign exchange market as necessary. The press release and introductory remarks delivered by the Governing Board members at the news conference are available on our website: English: https://www.snb.ch/en/ Deutsch: https://www.snb.ch/de/ Français: https://www.snb.ch/fr/ Italiano: https://www.snb.ch/it/

Financial Stability Report 2024 In its Financial Stability Report, the Swiss National Bank presents its assessment of the Swiss banking sector’s stability. The SNB publishes this report as part of its contribution to the stability of the financial system. It focuses on trends that are observable at the levels of the banking system, the financial markets and the macroeconomic environment. The main purpose of the report for the SNB is to draw attention to stresses or vulnerabilities that could pose a threat to financial stability in the short or longer term. The Financial Stability Report is published in English in June each year and is also being translated into German and French. The translations are usually published in September. Link to report on website: https://lnkd.in/dbRjjqgG

Monetary policy assessment: The news conference with the Governing Board will start tomorrow at 10:00 am CEST and can be followed live here: https://lnkd.in/gPHbj6Yh

New SNB Working Paper: Milen Arro-Cannarsa and Rolf Scheufele show that machine learning algorithms may offer significant improvements in GDP nowcasting accuracy compared to traditional methods. Abstract: We compare several machine learning methods for nowcasting GDP. A large mixed-frequency data set is used to investigate different algorithms such as regression based methods (LASSO, ridge, elastic net), regression trees (bagging, random forest, gradient boosting), and SVR. As benchmarks, we use univariate models, a simple forward selection algorithm, and a principal components regression. The analysis accounts for publication lags and treats monthly indicators as quarterly variables combined via blocking. Our data set consists of more than 1,100 time series. For the period after the Great Recession, which is particularly challenging in terms of nowcasting, we find that all considered machine learning techniques beat the univariate benchmark up to 28 % in terms of out-of-sample RMSE. Ridge, elastic net, and SVR are the most promising algorithms in our analysis, significantly outperforming principal components regression. https://lnkd.in/d9g7fg6f

INTERVIEW | Martin Schlegel schloss 2003 sein Ökonomiestudium an der University of Zurich ab. Anschliessend stieg er bei der Swiss National Bank (SNB) ein und ist heute Vizepräsident des Direktoriums. .𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘱𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘥 besuchte den Alumnus in seinem Büro am Bundesplatz in Bern und sprach mit ihm über Ziele und Herausforderungen der SNB, den Schweizer Franken und seine Laufbahn. Das Interview führte Victoria Watts.   Zu dem Beitrag 👉 https://lnkd.in/e3-DqQtj   #uzheconomics #pioneeringeconomics #economicresearch #uzh UZH Alumni

The natural rate of interest (r*) as a reference point for monetary policy – a practitioner’s view The keynote speech by Thomas Jordan, Chairman of the Governing Board, at the 2024 Bank of Korea International Conference is available on our website. English: https://lnkd.in/d6aNBBQ3 Deutsch: https://lnkd.in/dnN6J9bf Français: https://lnkd.in/dDzyf8AX Italiano: https://lnkd.in/dVbXsWhM

Wir haben #Nachgefragt bei Carlos Lenz, Swiss National Bank. https://lnkd.in/dmXjWF4t

Project Agorá, launched by the BIS, a group of leading central banks and the Institute of International Finance (IIF), is inviting the private sector to join its exploration of how tokenisation can enhance the functioning of wholesale cross-border payments. Project Agorá is seeking to bring together a diverse group of regulated financial institutions with a significant role in wholesale cross-border payments from the seven participating jurisdictions and currency areas, representing various business models. Private institutions are expected to contribute technical expertise to the platform design and work together with the participating central banks to test various use cases. Applying institutions are expected to have experience with digital innovation initiatives. The call for private sector participation will be open until 31 May 2024. The complete list of eligibility requirements for different kinds of financial institutions and jurisdiction-specific requirements, the terms and conditions and the selection criteria can be found in the application package: https://bit.ly/4ar02cj The IIF and BIS will review all applications and select participating firms. The list of selected firms is expected to be published by early August. Project Agorá is a joint public-private initiative of the BIS, Banque de France (representing the Eurosystem), Bank of Japan, Bank of Korea, Banco de México, Schweizerische Nationalbank, Bank of England, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the as the private sector convener. Read the project announcement: https://bit.ly/3vufghA