to antoine martin. developments on the financial markets and implementation of monetary policy before discussing the implementation of monetary policy, i would like briefly to review the main developments on the global financial markets. since the last monetary policy assessment, interest rates have increased worldwide on the back of robust economic data and a slower - than - expected decrease in inflation in the us. improving expectations regarding economic conditions and solid q4 2023 corporate earnings in the us supported risk assets. various us equity indices traded at all - time highs and credit spreads tightened further. in switzerland, on the other hand, interest rates have fallen slightly. the resulting widening of interest rate differentials has been weakening the swiss franc since the beginning of 2024. the swiss franc has depreciated by around 1 % on a trade - weighted basis since the last monetary policy assessment, having appreciated temporarily at year - end. the swiss franc is approximately 5 % higher relative to the beginning of 2023. let me now give you a brief overview of our monetary policy implementation, specifically in the money market. we can see that this continues to prove its worth. in an environment with high excess liquidity, the remuneration of sight deposits and the liquidity - absorbing open market operations ensure that the secured short - term swiss franc money market rates remain close to the snb policy rate. in addition, tiered remuneration creates an incentive for liquidity redistribution in the money market and thus also contributes to a solid calculation basis for saron. the snb regularly reviews the implementation of its monetary policy and adjusts it as necessary. its main goal is always the effective steering of secured short - term swiss franc money market rates. furthermore, we aim to keep the costs of implementing our monetary policy low. to this end, since 1 december 2023 we no longer remunerate sight deposits held by banks to meet the minimum reserve requirement. this adjustment has no effect on money market rates. page 5 / 6 zurich, 21 march 2024 thomas jordan, martin schlegel and antoine martin news conference page 6 / 6

forecast presented to the mpc at the most recent mpc meeting prior to the publication of the mpr. furthermore, in our statements which are released after each mpc meeting, we give details of the forecast so that market participants have a good idea of the timing and level at which inflation is expected to change direction. we also indicate where we expect inflation to be at the end of the forecast period. more recently we have also published our core model following numerous requests from private sector analysts and forecasters. we have also provided an assessment of the performance of the model over time which shows that the bank ’ s model has performed well, particularly relative to other private sector forecasts. the obvious question to ask is, should these analysts not also be transparent with their models? would it not improve the quality of debate or assist in the development of better models if we could see how other forecasters generate their forecasts? i have noted a deafening silence when i raise this issue with market economists. 6. conclusion i will not attempt to forecast the winner of the competition. i congratulate all of the contestants. the winner is the forecaster who has most accurately forecast the month - ahead inflation over the past year. although forecasting near - term inflation is useful, as the financial times columnist, sir samuel brittan argued, this type of forecast tells us more about the present and the recent past than about the future. from a monetary policy perspective, we are primarily concerned with forecasting over a longer time horizon. there is nothing monetary policy can do about the latest inflation numbers. monetary policy should be judged on whether appropriate actions are being taken today to ensure that inflation will be within the target range in 18 - 24 months time. for this we need to have a good medium - term forecast to provide us with a coherent framework. despite all the problems associated with forecasting, they remain integral to policy decisions, and we will continue to use them. the models have become increasingly sophisticated, but the future is inherently uncertain. at the same time the economic and political environment has also become more challenging and difficult to predict. unfortunately, as is sometimes said, the future is not what it used to be. thank you.