Switzerland's central bank has amassed considerable stock and currency positions as part of its monetary policy. Could Switzerland leverage that influence?

The Swiss National Bank (SNB) maintains billions of Swiss francs in stocks, including Facebook, as part of its attempts to weaken the Swiss franc – some of its foreign exchange reserves have gone into stock-picking, which the SNB began doing to diversify its holdings about ten years ago.

Why shouldn't the Swiss government peddle influence abroad through the considerable currency and stock holdings, SNB director Andrea Maechler was asked on Thursday.

Maechler conceded that Switzerland's currency-buying, which has resulted in reserves now outstripping the country's gross domestic product, is huge, but downplayed its influence.

Relatively Small

«Yes, we're big, but we're not that big,» Maechler said at a conference of Swiss business and politics in Zurich on Thursday. 

The SNB doesn't hold more than 3 percent of any company's stock – to avoid conflicts of interest, she noted. The case is similar for its currency piles, mainly euros.

«For Switzerland, we have a lot [of currency reserves] relative to our GDP, but a country like China, with more than $3 trillion in currency reserves, has far more influence. We remain, compared to the entire market, relatively small,» Maechler said.

Negative Rate Discomfort

Her comments came as a response to whether the SNB would consider allowing the Swiss government to use the influence from its stock and bond positions to curry favor abroad, such as in bilateral talks with Europe or to entice foreign firms to invest in Switzerland.

She gave no indication that Switzerland is poised to abandon its policy regime of negative benchmark interest rates combined with charges on Swiss franc deposits to dissuade investors from the Swiss franc, as one expert predicted earlier this month.

However, she made it clear that the SNB is uncomfortable with maintaining the policy.

«As soon as we can remove negative interest rates, we'll do so, but for the moment, they are necessary. We are a small and open economy, and we still have lower rates than abroad. If we didn't, the pressure on the Swiss franc would be more accentuated, more difficult and would have negative implications for our economy and currency.»