The Swiss National Bank, Switzerland’s central bank, said it generated a profit in excess of 24 billion Swiss francs in 2016, which comes as good news for country’s federal and regional governments.
The Swiss National Bank (SNB) made a profit of more than 19 billion francs on its foreign currency positions and a valuation gain of 3.9 billion francs on the gold holdings. As announced previously, the bank will allocate 4.6 billion francs to the provisions for currency reserves, the SNB said in a statement today.
The bank will have a net profit of more than 21 billion francs, taking the distribution reserve of 1.9 billion francs into account. This allows the bank to pay a dividend of 15 francs per share, the maximum it is legally allowed to pay out. The SNB will also distribute 1 billion francs to the federal and the regional governments.
Extra Payment to Government
The governments will also receive an additional payout of about half a billion francs, because the distribution reserve after appropriation of profit exceeds 20 billion francs. One third of the ordinary and the supplementary distribution is allocated to the federal government, two thirds to the cantons.
The detailed annual report will be published on March 6, the SNB said today.
