Central Banking

Well-anchored expectations and a quirk in the consumer price index (CPI) are behind Switzerland’s persistently low inflation figures, according to a board member at the central bank. In an interview published on August 22, Petra Tschudin told Swiss outlet Finanz und Wirtschaft that since petroleum products accounted for only 2% of private households’ spending, global energy shocks had not triggered a spike in the CPI. This acted as a natural buffer, shielding the country from imported inflation

The governor of the Central Bank of Brazil (BCB) has said it will examine macro-prudential measures to address rising household debt amid a widening government budget deficit. “It’s not right to be happy with news that credit has grown and then complain that debt has increased,” Gabriel Galípolo said at an event in São Paulo on August 24, according to reporting from Valor Economico. “If you have, in some way, promoted an increase in credit, it’s normal to expect that indebtedness will also grow.”

Visa announced today (August 25) that it had joined Bloom, the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s (MAS) multi-currency tokenised deposit and stablecoin project, as work to converge crypto and traditional payments rails continues. The MAS launched Bloom – which stands for ‘borderless, liquid, open, online, multi-currency’ – last October. It focuses on domestic and cross-border payments and settlement in Group of 10 and Asian currencies. Other participants include JP Morgan, dollar stablecoin issuer

Reserves in Australia are still above underlying demand, the country’s central bank has said. The Reserve Bank of Australia is transitioning from a supply-driven monetary policy framework to one based on lenders’ appetite for open market operations (OMOs), while keeping lending rates near its target. David Jacobs, the RBA’s head of domestic markets, said in a speech today (August 25) that the central bank aimed to achieve an ample supply of reserves in the economy via its regular full-allotment

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Capital gains taxation could serve as an effective tool to curb excessive asset price volatility if used in the form of a small levy on unrealised gains, a new study from the Bank of England has found. In the staff working paper, published on August 21, author Pau Belda notes that a longstanding question in public finance is whether capital gains tax accentuates asset price fluctuations, thereby promoting economic instability. To address this question, Belda developed a framework to analyse the

Central banks that do not have a meaningful relationship with the media are few and far between, and research as well as historical precedent show that this is a key relationship when it comes to the impact their policies have on households, businesses and markets. While crucial, the relationship isn’t always smooth. Central Banking’s latest Communications Benchmarks, published in December 2025, found that central banks faced widespread criticism from the media. Around 77% of the central banks

China’s ‘national security first’ economic model could lead to increased tensions with the US, a new paper from the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE) argues. In her research, published on August 20, Yeling Tan says China’s growth model has shifted since 2020 from being “export- or domestic investment-led” to one increasingly driven by national security logic. Tan says China has been pursuing a “dual circulation” strategy that seeks to balance domestic production, distribution

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Job security sentiment is weakening across the eurozone while wage growth holds at the mid-2% level, European Central Bank data shows. The ECB’s monthly Consumer Expectations Survey published on August 21 indicated households’ confidence that inflation was under control had held at a broadly stable level. Perceived inflation over the past 12 months dropped to 3.5% in July from 3.6% in June, and the outlook for the following 12 months declined only slightly to 2.9% from 3.0% over the same period