Fritz Zurbrügg: Current developments in the area of financial stability in Switzerland

Introductory remarks by Mr Fritz Zurbrügg, Member of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank, at the Media News Conference of the Swiss National Bank, Berne, 15 December 2016.

The views expressed in this speech are those of the speaker and not the view of the BIS.

In my remarks today, I will start by presenting our current assessment in the area of financial stability, looking first at the big banks before turning to the domestically focused banks. I will end my remarks with a few words on the new banknote series.

Big banks

Since the Financial Stability Report was published in June, the Swiss big banks have improved their capital situation slightly; at the same time, they have substantially increased their holdings of bail-in bonds. Bail-in bonds are debt instruments that can be written off or converted into equity in the event of restructuring or resolution. They form the basis for a crisis-hit bank to be resolved or restructured in an orderly way. Alongside capital requirements, the qualitative and quantitative requirements on such debt instruments are a key component of the revised 'too big to fail' regulations which came into force at the beginning of July.