SND Foreign-Currency Holdings Hit Record on Intervention

By Simone Meier

June 7 (Bloomberg) — The Swiss central bank’s foreign- currency reserves surged to a record in May as the euro region’s increasing turmoil forced policy makers to step up their defense of the franc floor. Currency holdings rose to 303.8 billion Swiss francs ($318 billion) at the end of May from 237.6 billion francs in the previous month, according to a statement published on the Swiss National Bank’s website today. Walter Meier, a spokesman at the SNB in Zurich, said by telephone that a “large part” of the increase was due to currency purchases to defend the minimum exchange rate of 1.20 versus the euro.