Swiss restraint on lending is credit positive, says Moody’s

The Swiss government’s decision to impose an additional 1% capital on the risk weighting of Swiss residential mortgages is credit positive, Moody’s said on Monday. The move follows similar efforts by some Nordic authorities to dampen mortgage credit growth, by lowering maximum loan to value ratios. In both cases the authorities avoided interest rate hikes, which would have had a detrimental effect on their currencies.