The Swiss National Bank raised interest rates today, taking them from -0.75% to -0.25%.
The rate is still negative, but they are on a path to normalizing.
Why were Swiss rates negative? Well during the Eurozone crisis, money poured out of the eurozone (population 350 million), into Switzerland (population 8.5 million), causing the Swiss franc to soar, and they cut rates to negative to deter people from depositing money in Switzerland.
Switzerland has never done Quantitative Easing (where money is printed to buy government bonds), and their inflation is 2.9%, which is lower than everywhere else. The Swiss National Bank would like inflation to be below 2%, which is why they raised rates today.
The only central bank who hasn't raised interest rates is the European Central Bank which is holding rates at -0.5% while inflation is 8.1%.
