Zurich. The likelihood that the president of the Swiss National Bank (SNB) will resign from his post is rising by the minute, in our opinion. The swiss weekly "Weltwoche " is reporting that it was Philippe Hildebrand who personally bought CHF 400'000 worth of USD on August 15th 2011 via his bank account with Bank Sarasin, Zurich branch.

It therefore seems rather likely that he will have to resign on at least an interim basis until the issue is cleared, as it could damage the credibility of the Swiss National Bank the longer it remains prominently discussed in the national - and increasingly international -  media.

In a written statement to Swiss TV news programme "10vor10" his wife had yesterday stated, that it was her who traded and that she had been of the opinion that the Swiss Franc had been"ridiculously cheap" at the time.

The SNB currently does not want to publish its internal directives on FX-dealing for employees, management, which in turn is fueling speculation about the integrity of the SNB aswell as the rigidity of internal processes regarding compliance issues.

## 15:15 CET Update ##

* The SNB has just published the internal guidelines for trading (currently in german only).

* The SNB president will address the open issues tomorrow (Thursday, 5th January 2011).

## 15:50 CET Update ##

* See our latest point of view

/MS