Indeed, our recent experience has shown impressive convergence between Switzerland and the EU in monetary matters. The inflation differential has decreased and interest rates have moved closer. But we are still far from a monetary integration. On the contrary, the Swiss National Bank has been able to operate more freely since the introduction of the euro than before. BIS Review 70/2004  3  Thanks to a much more stable monetary landscape in Europe, the Swiss franc is today much less under speculative pressure than before. Our currency has still its international dimension, but it sticks closer to economic fundamentals, which is good news for our exporters. It also means that the exchange rate volatility between the franc and the euro is today less pronounced than the volatility we observed in the past between the franc and the German mark. Clearly the franc belongs to the family of the European currencies, reacting similarly vis-à-vis dollar fluctuations. In that sense, for sure, the franc and the euro are sister currencies. 4  BIS Review 70/2004
We have been intervening since the beginning of 1990 to develop the Hong Kong dollar debt market, again because the market was considered essential for effective financial intermediation, and, regrettably, the private sector was not able to develop one that is properly structured. The linked exchange rate system is also a product of the policy of positive non-interventionism. The Government intervened to fix the exchange rate because we found out in 1983, and since, that there is a need for a monetary anchor. In the absence of such an anchor, the value of our currency will be, in mathematical terms, an indeterminate. In other words, it is not something that the free market can determine in the best interest of the community without intervention. We have had four speculative attacks on our currency since the outbreak of financial turmoil in the region in the middle of last year. BIS Review 67/1998  -3It is very well known to almost everyone in the market that a handful of hedge funds have on each occasion conducted a double play in the stock futures market and the currency market. We have come to realise how this double play works, although it has only become apparent, at least to us, in the third and fourth attacks in June and August this year respectively. On each occasion, interbank interest rates were pushed higher, to varying degrees, with a view to engineering a sharp fall in the stock index futures.