Presentation accompanying the speech
Ladies and gentlemen
My colleague Thomas Moser and I are delighted to welcome you to our traditional Money Market Event in Geneva. We are pleased that so many of you have accepted our invitation to attend. Our speech today and the panel discussion that follows will focus on bank funding costs in the Swiss financial market.
Since we last met here a year ago, the SNB has lowered its policy rate by 1 percentage point. The policy rate has thus been cut by a total of 1.75 percentage points since the beginning of 2024, and this has passed through to the relevant market interest rates. Interest rates in the financial and credit markets have fallen accordingly, thereby also reducing interest costs for borrowers in Switzerland.
At the same time, however, we observe that the interest rates at which banks secure funding in the financial market have fallen less sharply than the general level of interest rates. This means that bank funding costs in the financial market have increased relatively speaking, which can affect the pricing and granting of loans.