Monetary policy is the responsibility of the SNB. The FDF deals with questions concerning the SNB's governance and legal basis. Monetary and central banking legislation falls within the remit of the FDF and is established in procedures that involve the FDF and the SNB.
Unlike foreign monetary orders, neither the Federal Constitution (Article 99 of the Cst.) nor the Federal Act on Currency and Payment Instruments contains provisions for a national monetary system in Switzerland. This reflects the openness of the legislative power to the two different basic options of monetary policy: the central bank may either aim to achieve domestic value stability – understood as price stability – via control of monetary variables, or it may aim to achieve external value stability by keeping the value of the franc constant in relation to another currency or a basket of currencies through foreign exchange transactions. For pragmatic reasons, the law leaves the procedures and responsibilities for determining the external value of the Swiss franc open.
Since the transition to floating exchange rates (1973), the exchange rate of the Swiss franc has been determined by market forces. An important influencing factor is certainly the monetary policy of the SNB, whose goal according to the National Bank Act is to ensure price stability (domestic value stability). Since the external value of the Swiss franc is of great importance to the course of the economy – and hence to the path of inflation – the SNB takes it into consideration when making its monetary policy decisions.