. 75 %, has allowed us to maintain an expansionary policy stance throughout the covid - 19 pandemic. the sharp increase in risk aversion also led to severe strains in offshore us dollar funding markets. because of the substantial increase in demand for us dollars, non - us banks increased the premium that they were willing to pay in order to secure us dollar funding in the foreign exchange swap market. this led to a significant increase in the us dollar swap basis 1 and a corresponding deterioration in dollar funding conditions, as shown in chart 5. so, to ease strains in global us dollar funding markets, the snb participated in a series of coordinated central bank actions, enhancing the provision of us dollar liquidity through the swap line arrangements with the federal reserve system. these actions proved effective. the us dollar swap rate quickly reverted to pre - covid - 19 levels. let me leave you here with a first observation. by promptly fending off the financial crisis as the covid - 19 pandemic was erupting on a global scale, central banks reaffirmed their role as effective crisis managers, both nationally and internationally. their decisive policy actions alleviated market stress and helped to restore confidence. but calming global financial markets – and in the case of switzerland, countering the heavy wave of safe - haven flows into swiss francs – has been only one facet of the snb ’ s policy response. the unique nature of the covid - 19 pandemic has also caused an unprecedented shock to the real economy. to mitigate this shock, central banks – in cooperation with the fiscal authorities – have created new instruments. the snb during the covid - 19 crisis : same role, new tools given the nature of the crisis, an important part of the policy response was to address the strains on the corporate sector, particularly among small and medium - sized enterprises ( smes ). in switzerland, 99 percent of all firms are smes and they employ some 67 percent of the labour force. the lockdown measures resulted in a sudden stop for many businesses. there was real concern that economically viable smes, in particular, could be the us dollar swap basis is an indicator of us dollar funding costs in foreign exchange markets. a large negative basis reflects a scarcity of us dollar funding. page 3 / 10 forced into bankruptcy through no fault of their own. to address the problem, the swiss federal council adopted a range of important measures, including the covid - 19 loan programme

personalised products. as digitalisation progresses, the quantity and value of such client data are increasing. established providers of payment services are having to confront the fact that competition at the client interface and competition for client data is intensifying. in the digital age, the wide network of branches which traditionally gave banks ’ a competitive edge no longer provides that advantage. developments in china show how quickly banks can lose their client interface to non - banks in the payments arena : within a few short years, the online marketplace alibaba and the news app wechat have managed to capture more than 90 % of the rapidly expanding mobile payments segment. 9 the growing focus on the client interface and client data also represents a challenge for central banks. gross misuse of data and a lack of reliability could seriously erode trust in payment systems – and ultimately in money itself. even with the new technologies and i covered this topic at our money market event a year ago. i stand by the point i made then – namely, that cryptocurrencies are more like speculative investment instruments than stable payment methods. financial stability board ( 2019 ), fintech and market structure in financial services : market developments and potential financial stability implications, fsb white paper, 14 february. page 6 / 9 possibilities coming on stream, payment transactions must continue to function and be secure. for payment systems to remain future - proof, in - depth discussions between the main stakeholders in the swiss financial centre are therefore essential. the second challenge thrown up by digitalisation is the unbundling of the value chain. in the past, the value chain – from payment initiation, through authorisation and clearing to complaints processing – was largely concentrated in the hands of a single entity. thanks to technical innovations, however, payment service providers are now unbundling and reconfiguring the value chain. for instance, they are taking the products of specialised providers – e. g. relating to fx transactions, payment guarantees or ‘ mobile wallets ’ – and combining them. established providers of payment services are having to adapt to this unbundling. they are having to cooperate with new players, invest in their value chains and simultaneously satisfy demand for ever faster and easier payment methods. the central banks, too, face a challenge : they need to develop the core payment infrastructure in such a way that the unbundling of the value chain can be successfully navigated – without new risks being created. as a result, we are seeing many central banks adapting their