It is much more prudent and prosaic than hovering over the relocate button or rushing to the exit door. But re-structuring by firms will in general increase their complexity. I struggle to see an outcome in which banks and insurers do not get harder to supervise and harder to resolve for all involved. While the outbounds are a little further advanced in their planning than the ‘inbounds’ based in the EEA, I expect that – depending on any developments in the Brexit negotiations – we will see a large number of the latter apply to us for authorisation on the assumption that access akin to their current passporting rights to operate in the UK will fall away. Time and negotiations will tell whether that assumption will prove correct. If it is, authorisations are going to be a significant operational challenge for the PRA. Brexit poses some material risks to our objectives but we are well on the case in dealing with them. In April I wrote to the CEO of every affected firm about their Brexit contingency plans and received over 400 responses. Supervisors have carefully scrutinised each one and provided feedback where plans needed more work. We particularly want assurance that firms have considered ‘cliff-edge’ scenarios where there is no negotiated agreement for financial services in place when we exit, and the two sides do not reach agreement on issues such as transition, mutual recognition of standards, and co-operation in financial regulation or supervision.
News conference  Berne, 15 June 2017 Thomas Jordan  Introductory remarks by Thomas Jordan  Ladies and gentlemen It is a pleasure for me to welcome you to the Swiss National Bank’s news conference. I will begin by explaining our monetary policy decision and our assessment of the economic situation. I will then hand over to Fritz Zurbrügg, who will present this year’s Financial Stability Report. After that, Andréa Maechler will review developments on the financial markets. Finally, we will – as ever – be pleased to take your questions. Monetary policy decision  Let me begin with our monetary policy decision and the inflation forecast. We are maintaining our expansionary monetary policy, with the aim of stabilising price developments and supporting economic activity. Interest on sight deposits at the SNB is to remain at –0.75% and the target range for the three-month Libor is unchanged at between –1.25% and –0.25%. We will remain active in the foreign exchange market as necessary, while taking the overall currency situation into consideration. The negative interest rate and our willingness to intervene in the foreign exchange market are intended to make Swiss franc investments less attractive, thereby easing pressure on the currency. The Swiss franc is still significantly overvalued. The new conditional inflation forecast differs little from that of March. We continue to anticipate an inflation rate of 0.3% for the current year. For 2018, the forecast has fallen slightly to 0.3%, from 0.4% in the previous quarter.