Swiss Central Bank Asked To Reform Itself After Saving Credit Suisse

The Swiss National Bank is facing calls for an overhaul in its governance, with critics saying too much power lies in the hands of its chairman Thomas Jordan and that more transparency is needed, John Revill reported for Reuters.

Photo Insert: The SNB played a major role in the state-sponsored rescue of Credit Suisse making 250 billion Swiss francs ($280 billion) of liquidity available to ease its takeover by UBS.

The SNB played a major role in the state-sponsored rescue of Credit Suisse making 250 billion Swiss francs ($280 billion) of liquidity available to ease its takeover by UBS. In the wider economy, its monetary policy has led to it building up a balance sheet of nearly 900 billion Swiss francs - equivalent to 113% of Swiss economic output.

The governance concerns have been brought center-stage by the search for a new member to replace Andrea Maechler, the first woman to serve on the SNB's governing board.

All that has raised concerns about the concentration of power in the SNB's three-person governing board overseen by Jordan, smaller than the policy-making teams of other major central banks and one which retains a high level of discretion over its decision-making process.

Jordan, who has led the board since 2012, has stamped his authority on the central bank during a period where it has upended currency markets by scrapping the Swiss franc's peg and introduced the world's lowest interest rates before joining others in tightening policy as inflationary pressures grew.

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