How Central Banks Use Gold Swaps To “Boost” Their Gold Holdings

With the specter of a “yes” outcome to the Swiss gold referendum finally being priced in by the market, and the frontrunning of the SNB’s potential 1,500 tons of gold purchases starting to move the price of gold higher, a question has emerged: is there enough physical gold to satisfy Swiss gold demand in case of a favorable outcome to the referendum. Well, as Deutsche Bank reports, that may not even be an issue. Because as the following step by step explanation demonstrates, the SNB may simply “window dress” its balance sheet with gold swaps.

So for anyone curious how banks “represent and warrant” that they have thousands of tons of physical gold when in reality they have far less if not zero physical in storage and all in “synthetic” form, here is the blow by blow.