Swiss National Bank vaults back into black
The Swiss National Bank (SNB) reported a profit of SFr4.83 billion ($4.28 billion) for the first quarter of 2009, boosted by exchange rate gains and gold prices.
The report marks a rebound for the central bank, which had closed the books on 2008 with a loss of SFr4.7 billion.
In a statement, the bank noted that since the beginning of the year, the price of gold had risen substantially. At the end of March it stood at SFr33,521 per kilogram, or 13 per cent higher than at the beginning of the year.
This resulted in a valuation gain of about SFr4 billion.
The SNB noted that all currencies, apart from the Japanese yen, rose in value against the Swiss franc during the first quarter, resulting in an exchange rate gain of about SFr1.8 billion.
A “stabilisation fund” created in October 2008 to hold toxic assets unloaded from Switzerland’s biggest bank, UBS, reduced first-quarter profit by SFr453 million.
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