Swiss National Bank - Gold Reserves

Gold Reserves

The SNB manages the official gold reserves of Switzerland, which as of 2008 amount to 1145 tonnes and are valued at 30.5 billion CHF. The gold is believed to be stored in huge vaults beneath the Federal Square (Bundesplatz) to the north of the federal Parliament building in Bern, but the SNB treats the location of the gold reserves as a secret. Independent confirmation of the gold's location was obtained by the Bernese newspaper Der Bund in 2008. It published a photograph of the bullion that a keystone photographer was allowed to take at the SNB premises in Bern in 2001. Der Bund also quoted a retired official of the city's surveying office as saying that the gold vaults take up an area of roughly half the Federal Square and have a depth of dozens of meters, down to the level of the Aar river. The SNB says that the gold reserves are stored in different safe places in Switzerland and abroad.