The Swiss central bank in the first three months of the year had a profit, thanks mainly to the higher gold price. Negative interest rates contributed only marginally to the bank's profit.
The Swiss National Bank (SNB) had a first-quarter profit of 5.7 billion Swiss francs, the institute said on Thursday. With 4.1 billion francs, the book gain on its gold reserves contributed the lion's share of the profit.
The bank also made an important gain with the foreign currency reserves, which added 1.2 billion to the total. The franc-denominated assets increased 439 million francs, with 333 million of those being attributable to the negative interest rates.
