This paper analyzes card payments to the retail sector in Switzerland during the COVID-19 crisis. We provide evidence on aggregate effects and regional shifts. Pronounced shifts—which persisted post-lockdown—can be observed from urban to suburban and rural areas and among cantons. Data allow us to identify directly two sources of shifts: “tourists and business travelers” and “e-commerce.” We indirectly identify additional sources: infection risk, lockdown measures, working from home, shopping tourism, and cash substitution. The COVID-19 crisis seems to have reinforced pre-existing trends that may have faster than anticipated effects on the economy. Our analysis underscores the usefulness of real-time card payment data to inform policymakers.

Based on trade data from the Swiss franc overnight interbank repo market, we gain valuable insights into the daytime value of money. In analogy to Baglioni and Monticini (2008), we provide evidence that an implicit intraday money market exists. We further show that the introduction of foreign exchange settlement system, Continuous Linked Settlement, increased the implicit value of intraday liquidity during settlement cycle hours, thus providing further evidence of the cost of immediacy. Finally, we provide evidence that during the financial market turmoil the implicit intraday interest in a secured money market was less affected than that in an unsecured money market.

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With the reinterpretation of repurchase agreements (repos) by the tax authority and the revision of the national bank law in 1997, allowing the Swiss national bank (SNB) to use repos as monetary policy instrument, the prerequisites for the development of a Swiss franc repo market were given. The development of the repo market in Switzerland only came up in 1999 with the provision of an integrated trading and settlement system provided by SegaInterSettle AG (SIS), Eurex and Swiss Interbank Clearing (SIC) in collaboration with the SNB. The following paper provides an overview of the basic characteristics and structure of the Swiss franc repo market as well as of the development it has undergone since 1999. It also discusses what motives and reasons the banks possess to actively participate in the Swiss franc repo market. Copyright Swiss Society for Financial Market Research 2007Repurchase agreement, Monetary policy, Switzerland, Interbank market, E40, E52, E58,