On the contrary, financial stability creates trust, which is an imperative for innovation to last. Well-tailored, consistent and evolving regulations are key in this regard. The second false contradiction opposes public and private players, with the former supposedly conscribed in their conservative regulators’ role and the latter in their innovators’ role. After decades of developing and maintaining state-ofthe-art technologies, central banks may sometimes consider this caricature as unfair. To private players who know us better – and to others: you can rest assured that we are willing to continue our fruitful partnership. We will obviously have to reinvent the terms and conditions of that partnership to some degree, but let me stress that central banks’ action will only succeed together with you, not against you. And that we central banks need to be on both sides: regulation, and innovation. I will now elaborate on these two key issues. Page 2 sur 5 I. The need for well-tailored, consistent and evolving regulations A number of players in the crypto world have recently stumbled - so-called “stablecoins”, DeFi protocol, lending platforms, hedge funds -, demonstrating in practice what many regulators and central banks had been claiming for years: that these new tools of payments and finance had unlocked age-old dangers, meaning that the industry requires robust regulation. Salvador’s decision to make bitcoin an official “currency” in September 2021, regrettable as it is, is a noteworthy experience of a forced attempt to label a currency something that is nothing more than a crypto asset.
It is thus not a permanent instrument for boosting capital, but rather a temporary requirement to be employed in exceptional circumstances. The countercyclical buffer is an important element in the macroprudential toolkit. I would therefore now like to take a brief look at the progress made in the area of macroprudential policy in Switzerland from the SNB’s perspective. Progress in structuring the macroprudential policy framework At its news conference one year ago, the SNB drew attention to the absence of an adequate set of instruments in the area of macroprudential policy. This was in response to a request by the Parliament’s Control Committees to evaluate our mandate and set of instruments relating to financial stability. So what are the key milestones that have been achieved this year in establishing a framework for macroprudential oversight in Switzerland, in relation both to instruments and to the division of responsibilities? Firstly, with regard to the above-mentioned countercyclical buffer, the financial stability task force led by the FDF has taken concrete steps towards implementing an important  2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  macroprudential instrument. In addition, the proposed structure of this buffer provides for a clear division of responsibilities: After consulting with FINMA, the SNB submits a request to the Federal Council regarding the activation and the level of the buffer. The Federal Council then makes the final decision. Secondly, in the context of the implementation of the “too big to fail” regulations, the decision-making authority with regard to systemic importance was clearly defined.