SNB Skipped Intervening in October Despite Franc Surge, UBS Says

(Bloomberg) — The Swiss National Bank probably didn’t step into currency markets in October to stop the haven run of the franc, according to UBS calculations based on balance sheet data.

Florian Germanier, an economist at the bank in Zurich, estimated that the SNB’s transactions in the month are in a range between buying foreign exchange worth as much as 20 million francs ($25 million) and selling up to 50 million francs. Such numbers are much lower than the 5.1 billion francs the central bank spent in the second quarter.

“There’s no indication that the SNB intervened,” Germanier said. “This is a ballpark that doesn’t suggest officials were active — in periods when they acted, balance sheet data suggested that much more strongly.”

The currency approached 0.92 francs per euro — seen by many traders as a key level — in October before reversing, stoking suspicions that policymakers sold currency to curb the gains. That they apparently held off from doing so, chimes with a shift of Switzerland’s central bank toward intervening more judiciously compared to its large-scale franc sales of the past.

Germanier added that the SNB might still have stepped into markets in November to tackle the decade high the currency reached in the wake of Switzerland’s trade deal with the US. Swings on the Swiss money market in mid-November — when the franc rose to its strongest level since January 2015, when the SNB ended its cap on the exchange rate — could indicate that, he said.

“We saw movements that could be explained by interventions,” he said. “But this could also be driven by other factors.”

The SNB publishes its market transactions with a delay of three months after the end of any quarter. That means official data for the October-December period will only be released at the end of March 2026.

©2025 Bloomberg L.P.