SNB Could Cut Exemption Limit If Additional Easing Needed
- Change not planned, but an option, Jordan says in interview
- Current threshold at 20 times minimum-reserve requirements
Swiss National Bank President Thomas Jordan.
Photographer: Michele Limina/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
The Swiss National Bank could lower the amount of bank reserves that are exempt from its negative interest rate if it needs to ease policy further, the central bank’s president said.
“So far we do not plan any change, but of course the exemption threshold is a possible policy instrument,” SNB President Thomas Jordan said in an interview on Saturday in Shanghai, where he was attending a Group of 20 meeting. “It is a different mechanism to change the restriction of monetary policy, but of course the combination of negative rates and the size of the exemption threshold in total makes the impact on monetary policy conditions.”