ZURICH (Reuters) – Swiss National Bank (SNB) Chairman Thomas Jordan flagged further interest rate hikes in an interview aired by Swiss broadcaster SRF on Saturday.
Jordan said the SNB’s recent interest rate hike was “very likely not quite” enough to get a grip on inflation in Switzerland.
The Swiss central bank raised its policy interest rate by 25 basis points on Thursday, pressing ahead with its campaign to dampen stubbornly high inflation and bring it down to below 2%.
Jordan also spoke of the recent rescue of Credit Suisse, which was taken over by Swiss rival UBS and given access to more than 200 billion Swiss francs ($223 billion) in financial guarantees.
The chairman said he could not reveal how much has already been repaid to the central bank but he expected a significant part of what remains outstanding to be paid back in the next few months.
In its first-quarter earnings report in April, Credit Suisse said that the net borrowings from the SNB totalled 108 billion Swiss francs after it had repaid 60 billion in the first quarter.
Switzerland’s finance minister said on June 1 that Credit Suisse had repaid the liquidity backed by the Swiss government.
($1 = 0.8981 Swiss francs)
(Reporting by Noele Illien; Editing by Alexander Smith)
