5 percentage points, and the swiss franc has appreciated significantly since mid - 2021. this tightening of monetary conditions was necessary to bring inflation back within the price stability range. inflation has been below 2 % again since june this year. at 1. 4 % in november it was even lower than we had expected in september. inflation is likely to increase again somewhat in the coming months. nevertheless, underlying inflationary pressure has continued to decrease slightly compared with september, and our conditional inflation forecast is now within the price stability range over the entire forecast horizon for the first time in some time. we have decided today to leave the snb policy rate unchanged. at the same time, we are no longer focusing on foreign currency sales. this reflects that monetary conditions are currently appropriate. page 3 / 6 berne, 14 december 2023 thomas jordan, martin schlegel and thomas moser news conference however, uncertainty about the development of inflation going forward remains high. on the one hand, there are still upside risks, although these have abated somewhat of late. for example, there could still be second - round effects in many domestic goods and services. on the other hand, there are also downside risks with regard to inflation. it could, for example, decrease more strongly than expected in the wake of the economic slowdown. at present, our assessment is that the upside and downside risks for inflation are approximately balanced. against this backdrop, we will monitor the ongoing development of inflation closely. if necessary we will adjust our monetary policy and in this context we are also prepared to be active in the foreign exchange market. our goal remains to keep inflation within the range consistent with price stability on a sustainable basis over the medium term. ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your attention. i will now hand over to martin schlegel. ensuring the supply and distribution of cash i would like to inform you today about the snb ’ s current efforts in the area of cash. according to our payment methods survey, more than 95 % of the population would like to retain the option of using cash as a means of payment in the future. consumers want to be able to choose whether to pay with cash or electronic payment methods. it is true that this freedom of choice is largely a given nowadays. however it is not to be taken for granted, especially when less and less is paid for with cash. in order to retain cash as a payment method in the future, it must remain readily accessible, e.

transparency for the confidence in the quality of the money. transparency and accountability are also key elements in how we think about policy in the eurosystem today. in the 19th century, the privileged austrian central bank evolved from a bank that mainly financed the government to a central bank of the banking system of the monarchy. in 1847, the bank had opened its first branch office in prague. by 1913, the network comprised some 100 offices all over the monarchy. these branch offices were not only useful when it came to stemming local banking crises, they also helped facilitate the flow of capital within the monarchy, thus forging together this vast, yet highly heterogeneous economy. this way, the bank – which had for its first forty years been mainly active in vienna – became a truly “ national ” bank, in the original sense of encompassing all the people of the empire. by that time, however, “ national ” already referred to a rather exclusive concept, which opposed rather than united different groups of the population. the bank could not escape the national struggles that marked the habsburg monarchy during the last decades of its existence. in 1867, hungary obtained a significant degree of independence within the empire, now renamed austria - hungary. as a consequence of this “ compromise, ” most competences of the central government were devolved to the levels of the austrian and the hungarian parliaments and governments, respectively, notably fiscal policy. only few areas of policy continued to be run jointly : including foreign policy, the army, the navy, foreign trade and – last but not least – the common currency. the bank faced an environment that had fundamentally changed. before 1867, the bank had negotiated with just one counterparty, the imperial government, about its statutes, which had to be renewed at regular intervals, and all other laws pertaining to the monetary system. now, the bank faced two interlocutors, which more often than not found it difficult to agree. the austrian central bank was renamed the austro - hungarian bank, budapest was promoted to become the second head office equal to vienna and a common, but independent decision - making process was installed. in the following years, the relationship between austria and hungary was not always harmonious, to put it mildly. more often than not, important decisions were blocked. within this difficult setting, the bank operated quite successfully. in the 1890s, after almost 50 years of floating exchange rates, austria - hungary succeeded in pegging its currency to gold, then seen as the seal of prude