Petra Tschudin, Thomas Moser: The Swiss repo market at 25 - a success story for the financial centre and the Swiss National Bank

Speech by Ms Petra Tschudin, Member of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank, and Mr Thomas Moser, Alternate Member of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank, at the Money Market Event, Geneva, 21 November 2024.

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

Central bank speech  | 
27 November 2024
by Petra Tschudin and Thomas Moser
PDF full text
(3,027kb)
  |  19 pages

Ladies and gentlemen

A warm welcome to the Money Market Event. My colleague Thomas Moser and I are delighted that so many of you have accepted our invitation to attend.

This year we are celebrating something very special: the 25th anniversary of the Swiss franc repo market. In June 1999, the Swiss National Bank conducted its first repo transaction on an integrated and automated financial market infrastructure, the Swiss Money Market Value Chain, laying an important milestone in the financial history of our country.

Today, thanks to cooperation between the infrastructure providers, the banks, other financial market participants and the SNB, the Swiss franc repo market is among the most advanced and efficient repo markets in the world. It has evolved into the central hub for Swiss franc liquidity, and repo transactions are the SNB's most important instrument for implementing monetary policy.

In our speech today, we will first examine the key role the repo market plays for the SNB's monetary policy and explore the advantages of repo transactions for banks and other financial market participants. We will then take a look at the development of the Swiss franc repo market over the last 25 years, before closing with some thoughts about potential future developments.

Importance of the Swiss franc repo market for the SNB's monetary policy

The Swiss franc repo market is of central importance to the SNB's monetary policy. It provides the foundation for the implementation of our interest rate policy. Repo transactions are the backbone of our open market operations, which include the issuance of SNB Bills and, where necessary, foreign exchange transactions.