jean - pierre danthine : financial stability developments and the delayed new swiss banknotes introductory remarks by mr jean - pierre danthine, vice chairman of the governing board of the swiss national bank, at the media news conference of the swiss national bank, berne, 13 december 2012. * * * in my introductory remarks today, i would like to look at the main developments in the area of financial stability since the publication of our financial stability report in june of this year. afterwards, i will talk about the postponement of the new banknote series. in the area of financial stability, the improvement in the big banks ’ capital situation is particularly noteworthy. the prevailing uncertainties and the risks for the banking sector as a whole remain considerable, however. prevailing risks remain considerable general economic and financial conditions for the swiss banking sector remain difficult. on the one hand, the situation in the financial markets has eased since june 2012. this is largely due to various decisions and measures taken by governments and central banks worldwide. on the other hand, the easing of tensions in the financial markets should be interpreted with caution. should the measures already taken not be effective or should the progress made in restructuring government budgets be slow, we cannot rule out renewed turbulence in the financial markets. the european banking industry is also in a fragile state. although cds premia for european banks have been going down in the last few months, their level is still considerably above previous years as well as that of swiss and us banks. finally, as my colleague thomas jordan has explained, the global economic outlook remains modest. for europe, in particular, we have revised our short - term forecast downwards again slightly. for switzerland, the national bank is expecting moderate growth. economic conditions remain comparatively good, which – in conjunction with the low level of interest rates – is boosting the continued strong momentum in the mortgage and real estate markets. i will speak about developments in this market in more detail later on. to sum up, the risks in the banking environment remain considerable. first, the risk of an escalation of the european debt crisis is not insignificant. second, imbalances are building up in the swiss real estate market. this goes hand in hand with an increased risk of significant price corrections in the medium term. greater resilience of the big banks the situation of the big banks has improved since the last news conference, as both institutions have further increased their resilience. this increase was particularly pronounced at credit suisse. according

jean - pierre roth : inflation and economic activity – are we at a crossroads? summary of a lunchtime discussion 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 “ geneva financial center ” organisation, geneva, 28 august 2006. the complete speech can be found in french on the swiss national bank ’ s website ( www. snb. ch ). * * * while the world economy is experiencing exceptionally vigorous expansion and inflationary pressure is contained, there is still a certain amount of uncertainty. will the economy turn down again and inflation accelerate? the swiss national bank is not working with a scenario of imminent weakness in the global economy, even if the rate of growth slows somewhat. certainly, the us economy appears to be heading for a soft landing, and economic activity in europe is also likely to increase less rapidly in the second half of the year. on the price front, the recent surge in inflation in the consumer price index was largely attributable to the cost of goods and services directly linked to energy prices, while core inflation remained at a relatively low level. given the slowdown in global spending and the normalisation of monetary conditions, inflationary pressures are likely to remain restrained. this assessment also applies to switzerland. the vitality of the manufacturing, financial and construction sectors, which have fuelled economic growth in our country over the past few quarters, is likely to diminish, particularly in view of the expected slowdown in global demand. growth in swiss gdp will probably amount to a little over 2. 5 % in 2006 ( this is a cautious forecast ), falling back slightly in 2007 yet remaining in the vicinity of 2 %. consumer prices rose 1. 4 % in july, marginally above our figure for core inflation, which at 1. 2 % is the highest since april 2002. however, these rates are well below the level of 2 % that we consider the upper limit for price stability. for 2006 as a whole, we expect the average rate of inflation to remain below 1. 5 %, and this is unlikely to change much in 2007. with respect to monetary policy, the healthy economic outlook in both the world and domestic economies, together with the high level of capacity utilisation in manufacturing, require us to further pursue normalisation of the target range for the three - month libor. this is particularly necessary in view of the significant relaxation in global