of relative monetary conditions and appeared to have more to do with market uncertainty about the prospects for the euro. but, whatever the cause, it seriously complicated our task of monetary management by creating a suddenly much harsher business environment for many of the internationally exposed sectors of the economy – including parts of industry, but also much of agriculture and some of the services sectors. domestic demand, on the other hand, was growing strongly, so strongly in fact that we faced the danger of overheating in the economy as a whole despite the dampening effect of the appreciation on domestic costs and prices and despite the restraining effect on aggregate demand of the prospective worsening of the external trade balance. that was the background to the tightening of monetary policy from the middle of 1997 designed to moderate the pace of overall demand growth. we were of course well aware of the pressures on the internationally exposed sectors, and we made full allowance for the twin effects of the strong exchange rate on the price level and on aggregate demand in making our projections of future inflation. but if we had held off from tightening policy to moderate the pace of the overall expansion at that stage – in order to try to protect the exposed sectors – the chances were that inflation would have accelerated, and that we would then eventually have had to bring the economy as a whole to an abrupt standstill in order to bring inflation back under control. that would not have helped anybody. by the late summer of last year these conflicting pressures in the economy appeared to be beginning to ease. domestic demand growth was indeed moderating – as it needed to do ; and the exaggerated strength of sterling ’ s exchange rate was diminishing as the approach of the introduction of the euro appeared to generate increased confidence in the new currency. but we were all then hit by new shocks to the world economy. russian default, followed by the near collapse of a highly - geared us hedge fund, led to a flight of investment into only the most secure and highly liquid assets, threatening not only a new round of financial crises in the emerging markets of asia, latin america and elsewhere, but also, for the first time, a credit crunch in major industrial economies, most notably in the us. meanwhile the japanese economy remained independently mired in recession. by the time of the annual imf meetings in washington last october the public atmosphere was close to panic and the media noise was of impending world recession. business confidence slumped pretty well everywhere, and so too in this country did consumer confidence. we were faced in

##nb is following developments closely, and is actively involved in the debate, not least through its future participation in the bis innovation hub i mentioned earlier. thank you for your attention. page 7 / 7 currencies, money and digital tokens thomas j. jordan chairman of the governing board swiss national bank 30th anniversary of the wwz and vbo university of basel, 5 september 2019 types of money in switzerland currency issuer type cash state banknotes and coins state private private book money digital token money sight deposits held at the snb for financial market participants swiss franc tokens for financial market participants sight deposits held at the snb for all households and companies swiss franc tokens for all households and companies bank deposits stable coins ( value stable against swiss franc ) stable coins ( minimal fluctuations in value against official currencies, e. g. libra ) private crypto tokens ( e. g. bitcoin ) existing types of money 05. 09. 2019 potential types of money currencies, money and digital tokens | thomas j. jordan | © swiss national bank