Martin Schlegel, Antoine Martin, Petra Tschudin: Introductory remarks by the Governing Board, Swiss National Bank news conference
Introductory remarks by Mr Martin Schlegel, Chairman of the Governing Board of the SNB, Mr Antoine Martin, Vice Chairman of the Governing Board of the SNB, and Ms Petra Tschudin, Member of the Governing Board of the SNB, at the Media News Conference of the Swiss National Bank, Zurich, 19 March 2026.
Ladies and gentlemen
On behalf of the Governing Board, it is my pleasure as Chairman to welcome you to the SNB's news conference. After our introductory remarks, we will as usual be pleased to take any questions you may have.
Monetary policy decision
I will begin with our monetary policy decision. We have decided to leave the SNB policy rate unchanged at 0%. Banks' sight deposits held at the SNB will be remunerated at the SNB policy rate up to a certain threshold. The discount for sight deposits above this threshold still stands at 0.25 percentage points. Given the conflict in the Middle East, our willingness to intervene in the foreign exchange market has increased. We thereby counter a rapid and excessive appreciation of the Swiss franc, which would jeopardise price stability in Switzerland.
Our conditional inflation forecast for the coming quarters is higher than in December due to the rise in energy prices. Medium-term inflationary pressure, however, has remained virtually unchanged since the last monetary policy assessment. Our monetary policy helps to keep inflation within the range consistent with price stability and supports economic development. We will continue to monitor the situation closely and adjust our monetary policy if necessary, in order to ensure price stability over the medium term.