Swiss franc's safe haven status is proving to be a headache for the nation
- The Swiss franc has appreciated 10% against the U.S. dollar since the beginning of the year.
- A strengthening franc has put deflationary pressure on the Swiss economy, which returned to deflation last month.
- The Swiss National Bank has, in the past, intervened in currency markets — but with Donald Trump back in the White House, that move is harder for the central bank to make.
U.S. President Donald Trump's trade policies have rocked global equities in recent weeks, driving investors to seek out pockets of safety in financial markets.
One of the beneficiaries of the market volatility has been the Swiss franc, widely seen as a safe haven asset in times of macroeconomic or geopolitical uncertainty. The Swiss currency has appreciated 9.5% against the U.S. dollar since the beginning of the year — but inside Switzerland's borders, rising demand for the franc is stirring up challenges for policymakers.
The Swiss franc was last seen trading 0.2% lower against the greenback, with $1 buying around 0.82 Swiss francs.
A strong franc puts deflationary pressure on Switzerland. As the currency appreciates, imports – which play a significant role in the country's economy – become cheaper.
For some countries, this effect might be a welcome reprieve from sticky inflation. But while many developed markets, such as the U.S. and the U.K., are still working to bring inflation down to their 2% targets, Switzerland is facing the opposite problem: prices are falling too much.
Swiss inflation turned negative in May, with the country's Consumer Price Index falling by 0.1% year-on-year. The price of imported goods contracted significantly, falling by 2.4% on an annual basis after staying flat in the previous month.
Charlotte de Montpellier, senior France and Switzerland economist at ING, noted the role the currency rally was playing in the country's inflation picture.
"The latest decline is largely driven by external factors," she said in a note on Tuesday. "A strong Swiss franc has significantly reduced the cost of imported goods ... Given that imports make up 23% of the CPI basket, this has a notable impact on overall inflation in Switzerland."
The May data marked Switzerland's first return to deflation since the Covid-19 pandemic. It could push the Swiss National Bank toward utilizing two key policies previously implemented to address what De Montpellier labeled a "persistent headache" for the central bank.
Negative interest rates
The SNB ended a seven-year stretch of negative interest rates in 2022 — an unpopular policy with savers and lenders, as they eliminate returns on savings deposits and squeeze banks' margins and profitability.
At its most recent meeting in March, the central bank cut its key rate by 25 basis points to 0.25%.
In the wake of this week's inflation data, the SNB is expected to "seek to combat the appreciation of the Swiss franc with the weapons at its disposal," De Montpellier said.
ING expects the SNB to cut its key interest rate by 25 basis points at its next meeting later this month — and De Montpellier argued that further cuts will likely follow.
"Based on current data, a return to negative interest rates before year-end appears increasingly probable," she said. "Our base case includes a second 25bp cut in September, bringing the policy rate to -0.25%. While the SNB would prefer to avoid deeper cuts, a 50bp reduction in June cannot be ruled out."
While ING expects Swiss policymakers to stop cutting rates at -0.25%, De Montpellier said a further strengthening of the Swiss franc "could force [the SNB's] hand," leaving it with little choice but to take rates further into negative territory.
Lily Fang, a professor of finance at business school INSEAD, told CNBC that current conditions were likely to push Switzerland back into a negative rates environment — a move that SNB Chair Martin Schlegel has stressed remains on the table.
"The Swiss authorities are clearly concerned, because … it's a small, open economy that relies on international trade, and the U.S. in particular is their single most important trading partner beyond the EU bloc," Fang said in a phone call.
"Switzerland has already gone ahead and lowered rates ahead of the EU. I think it is very likely to go to zero and even negative."
Currency intervention
Another tool the SNB has previously used to cool the Swiss franc is intervening in the foreign exchange market by selling the franc and purchasing foreign currencies.
However, with U.S. President Donald Trump back in the White House, this strategy now comes with political challenges.
On Thursday, the U.S. Treasury Department added nine economies to a "Monitoring List" of trading partners "whose currency practices and macroeconomic policies merit close attention."
They are: China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Vietnam, Germany, Ireland and Switzerland.
Back in 2020, the U.S. Treasury, under the first Trump administration, labeled Switzerland a currency manipulator, accusing it of deliberately devaluing the Swiss franc against the greenback. The department stopped short of using the term "currency manipulator" on Thursday.
However, Trump's full list of so-called reciprocal tariffs said "currency manipulation and trade barriers" had been factored into calculating the levies individual countries were imposing on the United States. The administration said it had calculated that Switzerland — which abolished all industrial tariffs last year — charged tariffs of 61% to the U.S., and it would therefore slap new tariffs of 31% onto Swiss goods.
In a statement on Friday, the Swiss National Bank said it had taken note of the U.S. Treasury's report.
"The SNB does not engage in any manipulation of the Swiss franc," a spokesperson said. "It does not seek to prevent adjustments in the balance of trade or to gain unfair competitive advantages for the Swiss economy."
They added that the main instrument the SNB used to implement its monetary policy is its key interest rate — but noted that it would intervene in currency markets if deemed prudent.
"The use of foreign exchange market interventions may be necessary under certain circumstances to ensure appropriate monetary conditions in Switzerland," the SNB spokesperson said. "In so doing, the SNB does not pursue an exchange rate target, but rather focuses on its statutory mandate to ensure price stability."
Alongside Swiss authorities, the SNB said, the central bank remained in contact with U.S. officials to explain Switzerland's economic situation and monetary policy.
"We welcome these ongoing discussions as part of the 'macroeconomic dialogue,'" the spokesperson added.
While ING's De Montpellier acknowledged that any possible FX intervention from the SNB risked "provoking the ire of the US administration," she argued it was likely the central bank would intervene in markets in the coming months.
Alex King, a former FX trader and founder of personal finance platform Generation Money, agreed that any direct purchase of foreign currencies by the SNB was "unlikely to sit well with the US administration."
"When Switzerland was labelled a currency manipulator in 2020 the threat of tariffs wasn't such a major factor, but it now has a dilemma on its hands," he told CNBC in an email. "If it was to intervene directly again in FX markets, it could get hit with higher US tariffs, and the negative impact of this could be worse than short term inflationary pressures."
"I'm not sure that they will immediately go and use currency intervention, market intervention, because the U.S. tends to be … labeling countries 'manipulators,'" added INSEAD's Fang. "I don't think that they really want to be labeled as a manipulator again, [so] I think that they will use that probably as a last resort tool."