Swiss Gold Franc Initiative
On March 9, 2011, a parliamentary initiative was intrpdiced in the National Council of Switzerland to institute a gold franc as additional currency for Switzerland:
The Confederation institutes an official gold franc with a set of coins of different denominations, each having a fixed gold content. It regulates the concessions granted to the licensees authorized to mint coins; minting coins is not taxable.This initiative was examined by the Committee for Economic Affairs and Taxation, which rejected it at the June meeting.
This gold franc would have been defined as 0.1 gram of fine gold. The initiative would not have removed, replaced or pegged the existing Swiss franc, therefore both the gold franc and the Swiss franc would have coexisted side-by-side. Due to the fixed metallic content of the gold franc, its exchange rate with the Swiss franc would have gone up and down according to market supply and demand, like any other free-floating currency.
The gold franc was intended to become a safe-haven currency that would have divert international capital flows in times of financial crises away from the Swiss franc.
The gold franc would have completely independent from the gold reserves of the Swiss National Bank. It would have been minted only by Swiss commercial banks, under the supervision of the Swiss Confederation. The backers of the gold franc hoped that its institution would have made it easier for small savers to invest in gold by reducing the minimum investment and trading unit.
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