The Swiss National Bank bought foreign currencies worth 281 million Swiss francs ($312.47 million) in the first quarter of 2024, it said on Friday, reversing its recent policy of selling forex to strengthen the franc.

The amount of dollars, yen and euros bought contrasted sharply with the 22.7 billion francs in forex sold by the SNB in the October-to-December period.

The SNB declined to comment on Friday about the change in its approach.

In recent quarters the central bank had been selling foreign currencies to prop up the franc and reduce the effect of inflation from more expensive imports.

However, inflation has been within the SNB's 0-2% target range for several months, while the safe-haven franc has risen sharply in value against the euro due to concerns about the upcoming French elections.

SNB Chairman Thomas Jordan said earlier this month that the SNB was prepared to intervene in the foreign currency markets to prevent a rapid rise or fall in the franc.

UBS analyst Alessandro Bee described the foreign currency purchases as small and not a signal the SNB would intervene heavily against the franc - at the current exchange rates at least.

"They hardly bought anything in the first quarter compared to billions they sold in previous quarters," said Bee, who expects the franc to rise to 0.92 versus the euro over the next 12 months.

"That's not a level that will concern the SNB too much, but if the franc rose to 0.90 versus the euro they could start selling francs in a major way again to try to weaken the currency."

Karsten Junius, chief economist at J.Safra Sarasin, said the foreign currency purchases confirmed the SNB's earlier message that it had halted forex sales, but the amount of forex bought was too small to read anything into.

"I also wouldn't expect that they are active in the FX market right now," he added. ($1 = 0.8993 Swiss francs) (Reporting by John Revill; Editing by Miranda Murray, Friederike Heine and Anil D'Silva)