Fritz Zurbrügg: The Swiss National Bank’s investment policy – options and limitations Speech by Mr Fritz Zurbrügg, Member of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank, at the Money Market Event, Zurich, 27 March 2014. *  *  *  Accompanying charts can be found at the end of the speech or on the Swiss National Bank’s website The speaker would like to thank Dirk Faltin and Adriel Jost for their valuable support in preparing this speech. He is also indebted to Erich Gmür, Marco Huwiler and Sandro Streit for their insightful comments. Ladies and Gentlemen I would like to welcome you to our traditional Money Market Event in Zurich. I am delighted that so many of you have responded to our invitation. The focus of my comments today will be the investment policy of the Swiss National Bank (SNB), since it is now exactly ten years since the new National Bank Act (NBA) came into force, opening up new options for the SNB in the management of its foreign exchange reserves. Today I want to take the opportunity of presenting an assessment and acquainting you with the most important aspects of our investment policy. One of the most important and striking changes since 2004 has been our investments in equities and I will therefore focus particularly on our equity investments in my remarks. Following my presentation, my colleague Dewet Moser will take a closer look at developments on the foreign exchange and money markets.
Howard Lee: Benchmark regulation and migration Closing keynote by Mr Howard Lee, Deputy Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, at the Bloomberg-ISDA Benchmark Conference "Benchmark Regulation and Migration", Hong Kong, 30 May 2019. * * * Taran [Khera], ladies and gentlemen, 1. First of all, I would like to thank Bloomberg and ISDA for organising this Benchmark Conference and for gathering so many speakers and participants to exchange views on the important subject of benchmark reform. The subject of benchmark reform is always very close to my heart, as I have been involved in the review of interest rate benchmarks both in Hong Kong and in the context of the Financial Stability Board’s Official Sector Steering Group (FSB OSSG) deliberations for many years. LIBOR discontinuation: A turning point 2. If we look back to 2013 when the OSSG started to operate, there was a general agreement that given the changes in the interbank market, the interbank offer rates, or IBORs in short must be reformed. But given the long history of IBORs and the huge value of financial contracts referencing them, moving to new IBORs with fundamentally different determination methodologies, or switching to alternative reference rates is a very complex task, as we heard from many speakers just now. Understandably market participants generally took a ‘wait-and-see’ approach when dealing with benchmark transition issues. But now – with a growing recognition that LIBOR may discontinue after end-2021 – the situation is changing.