jean - pierre roth : “ a franc remains a franc ” – 100 years of national bank policy in support of monetary stability address by mr jean - pierre roth, chairman of the governing board of the swiss national bank and chairman of the board of directors of the bank for international settlements, at the official ceremony of the 100th anniversary of the swiss national bank, zurich, 22 june 2007. * * * honoured president of the swiss confederation honoured prime minister of the principality of liechtenstein honoured members of the federal parliament honoured representatives of the cantonal governments honoured governors of fellow central banks honoured guests almost to the day 100 years ago, the swiss national bank opened its doors at the head offices in berne and zurich and the branch offices in basel, geneva and st gallen. this marked the end of around 16 years of parliamentary work that had followed the acceptance, in 1891, of a constitutional article leading to the establishment of a central note - issuing institution for the whole of switzerland. this prolonged process can definitely be explained by the fact that our countrymen, at the end of the 19th century, did not see any urgent need for the establishment of a central bank. in fact, the political debates prior to 1907 mainly focused on questions relating to the organisation of the bank and the distribution of its profits ; the regulatory role that the new institution was to assume was hardly touched upon. the new national bank was expected to gradually take over the activities of the former noteissuing institutions and to bring some welcome order to the payment system. at the time, the value of the swiss franc was defined in gold and silver, the precious metal content of the coins was fixed accordingly and banknotes could be exchanged for gold. nowadays, the snb ’ s responsibility in matters of monetary stability is uncontested. in fact, it is explicitly mandated by law to preserve price stability while taking economic developments into account. moreover, economic theory stresses the special responsibility of central banks in this area. the goals, methods and instruments of monetary policy have thus undergone profound changes. nevertheless, the principles that have guided our activity over the past century have been remarkably enduring, and this is exemplified by the history of the national bank. pursuit of stability from the outset, the national bank recognised that its role as the national note - issuing institution would extend far beyond the harmonisation of payment systems. the first steps were difficult. during the first world war, the snb actively participated in financing military expenditures through its loans. this undisci

philipp hildebrand : financial stability summary of a speech by mr philipp hildebrand, vice - chairman of the governing board of the swiss national bank, at the institut des hautes etudes commerciales de lausanne, lausanne, 16 september 2008. the complete speech can be found in french on the swiss national bank ’ s website ( www. snb. ch ). * * * during the period of financial market turbulence, central banks have gone far with their interventions to stabilize the financial system, taking into account the high costs that can be imposed by a banking crisis onto the real economy. central banks by themselves, however, cannot guarantee financial stability in the long term. in particular, we cannot exclude that their interventions create incentives for banks to be less cautious in the future. the first line of defence therefore consists of banks having sound risk management practices and holding appropriate levels of capital and liquidity. the financial stability forum has made a series of recommendations in this respect. given the size of the big swiss banks in relation to our national economy, we should be especially prudent. for this reason, the swiss national bank supports the project undertaken by the swiss federal banking commission ( sfbc ) to strengthen capital adequacy requirements and to revise the liquidity requirements for the big banks. as the sfbc has pointed out on several occasions, these measures have to be implemented gradually – to ensure that banks have sufficient time to adapt. these measures will contribute to the solidity and credibility of the swiss financial centre. this will strengthen its position as a global leader in wealth management.