Thomas Jordan: Comments on the Swiss National Bank's monetary policy and banking regulation

Speech by Mr Thomas Jordan, Chairman of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank, at the 110th Ordinary General Meeting of Shareholders of the Swiss National Bank, Berne, 27 April 2018.

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

Mr President of the Bank Council

Dear Shareholders

Dear Guests

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to our Annual General Meeting. As is customary, the first part of my speech will be devoted to comments on the current economic situation and monetary policy. Ten years after the start of the global financial crisis, we can now look back on a year in which economic momentum has been much more positive - both in Switzerland and worldwide. The question is: has the global economy now finally completed its unusually sluggish recovery process? As I will show, there are indeed grounds for optimism, but it is still too early for this to give way to euphoria.

In the second part of my speech, I would like to look at the state of play in banking regulation. A decade on from the global financial crisis, we should not just be asking whether we have recovered from the consequences of this event; we should also take stock of what we have done to improve the ability of our banking system to withstand future crises. As I will set out, the regulatory measures put in place have clearly strengthened the resilience of our banking system, and we therefore have reasons to be optimistic in this regard as well. That said, if we are to sustainably safeguard the stability of the financial system, it is imperative that we implement in full the regulatory measures that have already been agreed. We must also continually review them to ensure they are fit for purpose.

Let me begin with some comments on the current economic situation and monetary policy.