Philipp Hildebrand resigned as chairman of the Swiss National Bank yesterday, less than a week after he denied any wrongdoing in a scandal surrounding his wife’s currency trades and rejected calls to step down.
“I came to the conclusion that it’s not possible for me to deliver a definite proof that my wife requested the currency transaction without my knowledge,” Mr Hildebrand said. “Unfortunately, mistakes were made around this transaction.”
It emerged last month that Kashya Hildebrand had bought $500,000 just weeks before the SNB imposed a ceiling on the appreciating Swiss franc, sending the currency down sharply. She sold the dollars in early October, netting a profit of about SFr75,000.