Martin Schlegel

Schlegel joined the SNB in 2003 and served as Vice Chairman from 2022, giving him deep institutional continuity. His academic background includes studies at the University of Basel and the Graduate Institute in Geneva. The SNB operates in one of the world's most unusual monetary environments. Switzerland chronically faces deflationary rather than inflationary pressures, driven by the franc's persistent appreciation as a global safe-haven currency. The SNB was a pioneer of negative interest rates (introduced in 2015) and accumulated a massive foreign currency portfolio — exceeding Swiss GDP — through years of FX intervention aimed at weakening the franc. The SNB exited negative rates in 2022 but its balance sheet remains one of the largest relative to GDP globally. Schlegel inherits the challenge of managing this extraordinary balance sheet while navigating the franc's safe-haven status, which causes it to appreciate sharply during global risk-off episodes. Swiss government bond yields are among the lowest in the world, reflecting both the country's fiscal strength and the SNB's policy influence. His decisions on the policy rate and FX intervention stance directly shape Swiss government bond yields, franc exchange rate dynamics, and the broader European safe-haven landscape that affects capital allocation across global fixed income markets.