The Swiss National Bank lost 142.2 billion Swiss francs ($142.60 billion) in the first nine months of 2022, it said on Monday, as rising interest rates and the stronger Swiss franc slashed the value of the central bank's foreign investments.
"These losses may sound like a lot, but the SNB is not a normal company," said UBS economist Alessandro Bee.
"Normal bankruptcy rules" do not apply, he added, noting that the SNB, which made a 41.4 billion franc profit a year earlier, would always be liquid as long as there is demand for Swiss francs. Canton Zurich received 716 million francs as its share of the 6 billion francs distributed by the SNB this year, but said it knew there was no guarantee of the central bank cash."The SNB is not a normal bank, it's a central bank which has other tasks such as price stability and protecting the Swiss economy," Heinz Taennler, Zug's finance director, told Reuters.
Continued massive losses could wipe out the SNB's equity, which stood at 204 billion francs at the end of 2021.
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