In an historic turnaround, the Swiss National Bank is lifting its interest rate, ending an era of negative interest rates.
The Swiss National Bank (SNB) is lifting its interest rate by 0.75 percentage points to 0.5 effective Friday, it said at its monetary policy assessment meeting on Thursday.
The rate hike ends a period of negative interest rates which were implemented in 2015, the same year it dropped the Swiss franc's peg to the euro.
Further Increases
The central bank said it does not rule out further policy rate increases, which could be necessary to ensure price stability over the medium term. It is also willing to be active in foreign exchange markets if necessary, it said.
The rate hike comes in response to the renewed rise in inflationary pressure as the SNB tries to prevent inflation from spreading to goods and services that have been less affected so far, it said.
