The SNB reported a profit of around CHF 81 billion for the 2024 financial year. After the allocation to the provisions and despite the high loss carried forward from the previous year, a net profit of around CHF 16 billion was recorded for 2024. This allowed the SNB to pay a dividend, as well as to distribute a profit to the Confederation and the cantons.

The high annual profit in 2024 helped strengthen the SNB’s equity capital, which must reflect its balance sheet risks. These risks are high and can also change over time. Proposals by external experts on how much equity capital the SNB should hold ought therefore be weighed carefully, especially if their aim is higher distributions and less accrual of capital.

The SNB’s distributions cannot be taken for granted, in view of balance sheet risks and limited long-term potential earnings. Future profits depend mainly on share prices, the gold price and exchange rates, and it is difficult to predict how these will develop. Nor is generating a profit in itself an objective of the SNB. Rather, it has the statutory mandate to ensure price stability while taking due account of economic developments.

Over the years, the SNB’s high foreign exchange reserves have repeatedly inspired ideas about setting up a sovereign wealth fund to manage them. The SNB takes a critical stance on such proposals. The SNB requires full access to its foreign exchange reserves. This is the only way it can implement its monetary policy and achieve its mandate of price stability. A sovereign wealth fund would complicate monetary policy. Furthermore, such a fund could only generate a higher return if it took higher risks in its investment policy than the SNB. The hoped-for higher return would mean higher risks for the state, and thus for the taxpayers.