Swiss reject gold standard

Voters in Switzerland have rejected by a wide margin proposals to force the central bank to buy large quantities of gold.

Swiss voters have overwhelmingly rejected an initiative that would have forced the Swiss National Bank (SNB) to purchase large quantities of gold over the next few years.

In a referendum vote on 30 November, around 78% of participants voted against introducing a law that would compel the SNB to hold gold reserves equal to 20% of central-bank assets. At present, the SNB holds gold equal to around 7% of its assets.

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Andrew Van Sickle
Editor, MoneyWeek

Andrew is the editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He grew up in Vienna and studied at the University of St Andrews, where he gained a first-class MA in geography & international relations.

After graduating he began to contribute to the foreign page of The Week and soon afterwards joined MoneyWeek at its inception in October 2000. He helped Merryn Somerset Webb establish it as Britain’s best-selling financial magazine, contributing to every section of the publication and specialising in macroeconomics and stockmarkets, before going part-time.

His freelance projects have included a 2009 relaunch of The Pharma Letter, where he covered corporate news and political developments in the German pharmaceuticals market for two years, and a multiyear stint as deputy editor of the Barclays account at Redwood, a marketing agency.

Andrew has been editing MoneyWeek since 2018, and continues to specialise in investment and news in German-speaking countries owing to his fluent command of the language.