May 11 The Swiss National Bank’s (SNB) policy of negative interest rates is not ideal but is nevertheless necessary in order to weaken Switzerland’s “significantly overvalued” currency, Chairman Thomas Jordan said on Thursday.
“It’s not the case that we find it great to have negative interest rates,” Jordan said at a banking conference.
However, Jordan said negative interest rates, along with the central bank’s willingness to intervene in the currency were absolutely necessary in order to protect exporters from a stronger Swiss franc, which is a safe-haven currency in times of market stress.
(Reporting by Joshua Franklin and Angelika Gruber; editing by Brenna Hughes Neghaiwi)
Source: Reuters