Aside from QR codes, we have made a very good progress in terms of PromptPay, which is our electronic payment system and we have seen a very high uptake in usage of PromptPay, especially during the COVID crisis. The number of transactions per person per year increased and reached an all-time high. We have also extended to cross-border payments. We now have in place cross-border payments using QR codes with many of our neighbors such as Cambodia, Vietnam, as well as Japan. Most recently, we have connected our payment system, PromptPay, with that of Singapore, PayNow. This was the first global fast payment linkage and we have also seen a very satisfactory uptake on that front. Another opportunity for us in this area, building upon the digital infrastructure that we put in place, is mobile banking. We have seen a very rapid rise in the usage of mobile banking applications in Thailand. Thai people love their mobile phones and we have seen Thailand ranked number one globally in terms of usage of mobile banking applications for three years in a row. I think this is an example of opportunities that may arise and will come about as a result of putting in place the right kind of digital infrastructure to enable these things to happen. Aside from the initiatives I mentioned on the digital front, another important initiative that we have been undertaking is on CBDC or Central Bank Digital Currency.
In fact, it appears that in the current environment, higher prices are being passed on more quickly – and are also being more readily accepted – than was the case until just recently. In conjunction with this, longerterm inflation expectations have also been moving upwards slightly over the past quarters. Furthermore, there are clear indications of wage growth gathering momentum. How is the SNB handling this situation? We already made our initial response to the impending inflationary pressure in the final months of 2021. Both inflation and our inflation forecast at that time were still at a very low level. At our monetary policy assessment in December, we announced that we would allow the Swiss franc to appreciate to a certain extent in nominal terms in order to reduce the inflationary pressure from abroad. The Swiss franc gained around 4% in nominal terms between autumn 2021 and spring 2022, making imports cheaper and so countering the general increase in prices. In June 2022, we then raised  Page 4/16  the SNB policy rate for the first time in 15 years, by half a percentage point to −0.25%. At the same time, we signalled that further interest rate moves may be necessary in the foreseeable future. With our policy rate rise, the Swiss franc appreciated further. The need for monetary policy tightening is shown by our conditional inflation forecast of June 2022 (cf. Chart 5).