ZURICH (Reuters) – The Swiss National Bank (SNB) announced on Monday that it had incurred an annual loss of 3.2 billion Swiss francs (3.34 billion euros) for 2023, as the move to positive interest rates had cost the Swiss banking institution dearly.
The central bank recorded a loss of 8.5 billion Swiss francs on its positions in this currency, mainly linked to the day-to-day payment of interest on demand deposits it holds with commercial banks.
The SNB moved to positive rates in September 2022 to combat the resurgence of inflation after a long period of negative interest rates, and has applied a policy rate of 1.75% since last June.
The SNB made a profit of four billion francs on its foreign currency positions, although the profit and valuation gains on its stock and bond portfolio were significantly reduced by exchange rate losses during the year. ‘year.
The central bank also generated a capital gain of 1.7 billion francs on the stock of 1,040 tonnes of gold it holds.
The 2023 result, which confirmed the BNS forecasts published in January, constitutes an improvement compared to the record loss of 132.5 billion francs recorded in 2022.
(Reporting John Revill, French version Augustin Turpin, edited by Blandine Hénault)
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