The Swiss National Bank ended last year with a loss of 3.2 billion Swiss francs ($3.62 billion). This happened due to the transition to positive interest rates, writes Reuters.
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Profits from the valuation of the SNB's gold assets and interest paid on emergency loans provided during the Credit Suisse emergency rescue failed to offset the central bank's costs of implementing tighter monetary policy to combat inflation.During 2023 SNB suffered losses of CHF 8.5 billion on its Swiss franc positions, mainly due to interest paid on deposits.
Profits from foreign bonds and shares of the SNB amounting to almost 700 billion francs also fell significantly due to the appreciation of the Swiss franc during the year.
The result for 2023, which confirmed the preliminary forecast of the SNB in January, was better than the record 132 .5 billion francs of losses published by the central bank in 2022.
But this is not enough to allow dividends to be paid to shareholders or the Swiss central or regional governments for the second year in a row.
However, a loss is unlikely will affect monetary policy as Chairman Thomas Jordan, who announced his departure on Friday, is due to announce the latest interest rate decision on March 21.
During 2023, the SNB made a profit of 4 billion francs from its positions in foreign currency and an increase of 1.7 billion francs from the 1040 tons of gold that he stores. It also made a profit of 1.4 billion francs from emergency loans provided to facilitate the takeover of Credit Suisse.