The Swiss National Bank (SNB) announced Thursday an intensification of the publication of data relating to its operations on the money and foreign exchange markets. The financial community sees this as a reaction to political pressure and the demand for greater transparency.

The issuing institution has undertaken to provide more detailed data on these activities on its portal as of September 30.

Regarding the money market, the SNB will now publish at the end of the month "information on the conditions and the volume of the various monetary policy operations carried out the previous month", according to a brief press release issued on the sidelines of its periodic monetary policy update.

With regard to operations on the foreign exchange market - the volume of which was previously communicated on an annual basis in the activity report - the volume of operations for the previous quarter will henceforth be published at the end of each quarter.

"By acting in this way, the SNB seems to be bowing to pressure from the (US) Treasury, which has asked for more transparency on this aspect", comments Karsten Junius, chief economist at the bank J. Safra Sarasin. He points out, however, that in general, greater transparency by the central bank with regard to its interventions in the foreign exchange market does not necessarily make its policy more effective.

The fact that the SNB is committed to more transparency is a positive and confidence-building measure, believes for her part Caroline Hilb Paraskevopoulos, in charge of investment strategy and analysis at the Cantonal Bank of St. -Gall (SGKB), emphasizing that "communication represents 99% of the success of a monetary policy".

According to her, interest rates are no longer the central element of monetary policy, "but the catalog of measures continues". The fact that communication in this regard will be intensified is proof that these measures should be maintained, concludes the SGKB expert.