Current Account

The Current Account is the headline part of Swiss balance of payments statistics (records of cross-border money flows). The Swiss National Bank (SNB) compiles it under BPM6 (an IMF global manual), with series back to 1983.

It covers transactions between residents (people and firms in Switzerland) and non-residents during 1 quarter, not domestic trade or asset stocks (point-in-time holdings). It sums goods, services, primary income (work and investment pay) and secondary income (transfers without return). Sources are SNB surveys, Federal Customs Administration trade data and SFSO inputs under the National Bank Act.

Each quarter brings 1 release from Zurich, about 3 months after quarter end. As a rule Q1 appears in late June, Q2 in late September, Q3 in mid to late December and Q4 in late March.

Each release also covers the capital account (capital transfers), financial account (asset deals) and investment position (holdings snapshot), plus SNB portal charts and datasets. Figures revise with data and benchmarks. Readers watch the surplus in CHF billions, GDP share and year-back change, with no threshold or target. Each quarter is set against the same quarter last year for seasonal parts like tourism, not the prior quarter.

The balance has 4 parts, each as receipts minus expenses.

• Goods: cross-border goods flows, with chemicals and pharma leading FCA trade total 1, plus volatile non-monetary gold, net merchanting and supplements.
• Services: tourism, financial services, licence fees (pay for IP use), transport, telecom and computer, insurance and business services. Net receipts fell from CHF 35 billion in 2008 to CHF 19 billion in 2017.
• Primary income: pay from work and investments: direct investment (owned firms), portfolio (stocks and bonds), other holdings, reserves and commuter pay. It usually holds a small receipts surplus but swung to an expenses surplus in the 2008 crisis.
• Secondary income: transfers without return: private insurer flows and migrant remittances (pay sent home) plus public transfers; usually an expenses surplus (outflows beat inflows).

In Q1 2018 (published 25 June 2018) the surplus reached CHF 18 billion, up CHF 5 billion from the prior-year quarter. It equalled receipts of CHF 149 billion minus expenses of CHF 131 billion. Gold drove the rise: receipts grew CHF 2 billion to CHF 15 billion while expenses fell almost CHF 7 billion to CHF 13 billion. Services, primary income and secondary income stayed stable, so volatile gold moved the headline, not broad export strength.

1. Component balance: For each of the 4 parts, subtract expenses to non-residents from receipts from non-residents. A positive result is a receipts surplus (inflows beat outflows).
2. Current account balance: Add the 4 component balances; this equals total receipts minus total expenses.
3. Worked example (illustrative, CHF billions): Goods 100 minus 85 equals 15 and services 40 minus 33 equals 7 (all in CHF billions). Primary income 35 minus 34 equals 1 and secondary income 12 minus 15 equals minus 3, so the balance is 20, also 187 minus 167.
4. Consistency check (double-entry bookkeeping, each deal logged 2 times): In principle debits equal credits, but gaps leave a statistical difference (a balancing gap). It equals the financial account balance minus the current account and capital account balances, scaled against total transactions. It was about 3% of total transactions in 2017.