Swiss central bank sees 2024 profit at record $88 billion as gold, stock prices jump

By John Revill

ZURICH (Reuters) - The Swiss National Bank will likely report a record full-year profit of around 80 billion Swiss francs ($87.79 billion) for 2024, it said on Thursday, after benefiting from booming equity markets, rising gold prices and a stronger U.S. dollar.

The expected profit, according to provisional data, is the highest since the central bank was set up in 1907, comfortably exceeding the previous record of 54 billion francs in 2017.

The SNB, which will publish its earnings on March 3, logged an annual loss of 3.2 billion francs in 2023 and a record loss of 132 billion francs in 2022.

The 2024 figure is in line with a forecast by UBS economists, and will allow a payout to SNB shareholders as well as the country's central and regional governments for the first time in three years.

The SNB made a profit of 67 billion francs from its foreign currency holdings last year, boosted by strong equity markets - the MSCI World Index gained 17% in 2024.

The central bank has investments in tech majors such as Apple, Microsoft and e-commerce giant Amazon, among others.

The stronger U.S. dollar - in which the SNB holds 39% of its 744 billion francs worth of foreign currency assets also helped boost share valuations and dividends when converted into francs.

The SNB made a valuation gain of 21.2 billion francs on the 1.04 million metric tons of gold it holds, as the precious metal's price surged more than 27% in 2024.

The central bank's Swiss franc positions - mainly interest payments to banks for money lodged overnight and interest payments on SNB bills - returned a loss of 7.4 billion francs, however.

After allocating 11.6 billion francs to foreign currency reserves and paying back the previous losses, the SNB's ongoing profit stood at around 16 billion francs, allowing it to pay out 3 billion francs to central and regional governments and a dividend of 15 francs to shareholders, it said.

"The conditions last year were highly favourable for the SNB, with a stronger dollar and higher gold prices, which doesn't normally happen at the same time, while equity markets did very well," said UBS economist Alessandro Bee.

"This was a very unusual situation, but a highly favourable one for the SNB’s profits."

($1 = 0.9113 Swiss francs)

(Reporting by John Revill, Editing by Rashmi Aich, Kirsten Donovan)