Bank Chairman Thomas Jordan was spotted making the statements at the annual general meeting (AGM) of SNB shareholders. The bank currently holds 937 billion in foreign currency investments and has kept its word of ESG investing by reducing investments in energy and fossil fuel companies.
As per the Chairman, the SNB is against buying and holding Bitcoin as of now and is on a waitlist to be included in the bank’s balance sheet as a currency reserve.
But from the current perspective we do not believe bitcoin meets the requirements of currency reserves, that’s why we have until now decided not to have bitcoin on our balance sheet.
He said that it was not a “problem” for the bank to buy Bitcoin since it believes that it can passively invest in the cryptocurrency by buying investment products that are based on Bitcoin. But currently, it does think that it is “directly” investable as a currency reserve.
When the meeting was in conduct in Bern, climate change activists were protesting for the bank to end its investment in companies contributing to global warming.
“It makes no sense for us to sell all our shares, they would just be bought by someone else. The important thing is that the economy can transform itself to produce less CO2 emissions,” Chairman Thomas said. Their energy and fossil fuel portfolio weights currently stand at 3% to 4%, down from 10% in 2020-2021.
Bitcoin is also called out for its expensive and high energy-consuming mining activities. This could pose a further hurdle in front the bank to invest any amount— small or big—in the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.