Interest on sight deposits
The SNB applies interest to, or 'remunerates', sight deposits in Swiss francs held by banks and other financial market participants at the SNB. By remunerating sight deposits, the SNB influences the interest rate level on the money market, so that the secured short-term Swiss franc money market rates remain close to the SNB policy rate. The SNB uses a system of tiered remuneration. This encourages liquidity redistribution between sight deposit account holders and thereby promotes an active money market. Sight deposits up to a certain threshold are remunerated at the SNB policy rate and sight deposits above this threshold are remunerated at the SNB policy rate minus a discount.