system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Swiss negative interest rates and the reason for it.
gpt
The swiss franc is traditionally a so called "safe-haven-currency" during turbulent times. It has a reputation for being very stable, well behaved, etc. This makes it highly sought after, in turn causing it's value to increase further. Apart from not wanting a highly valued franc (because this hurts tourism, the export industry and the international service economy, which together make up the vast majority of businesses in Switzerland), the swiss government has no interest is seeing large sums of money "parked" on accounts instead of circulating.

In order to dissuade foreign investors from doing just that, the swiss national bank places negative interest rates on all accounts above a certain amount. This means that if you buy swiss francs with your millions of dollars and leave them on an account in Zürich until you feel that the markets have stabilized, you will be losing money all the time. As you can imagine this makes the currency less attractive and is consequently hoped to lower its value. If it'll work remains to be seen.