The head of the Swiss National Bank's trading floor in Singapore is returning to Switzerland this summer as head of the central bank's money market activities, finews.asia has learned.
The Swiss central bank opened a Singapore branch in 2013, the first non-Asian bank to do so. The move came against the backdrop of currency interventions by the central bank to weaken the franc, then still pegged to the euro.
The Swiss National Bank has spent billions in recent years trying to weaken the franc by buying euros. It has also sought to diversify into Asian currencies, including Japanese yen, Korean won and Singapore and Australian dollars.
Returning to Zurich
Swiss-born Roman Baumann, one of several SNB decision-makers who evaluated several branch options in Asia in 2012 before settling on the city state, returns to Zurich to replace Sebastien Kraenzlin in the SNB's third department from August 1, a spokeswoman for the central bank told finews.asia. The department, led by Andrea Maechler, is tasked with the Swiss franc's exchange rate policy.
The SNB's Singapore office – which began with seven employees including Baumann and has since grown to eight – enables the SNB to trade during Asian hours. Baumann's replacement in Singapore is not yet publicly known, but will be an internal one, the bank said.
