(Bloomberg) -- Climate activists handed the Swiss National Bank a petition signed by more than 60,000 people demanding a stop to investments in companies that use fracking technologies to mine oil and gas.

The central bank, which has a quarter of its 641.7 billion francs ($738.4 billion) of foreign-currency reserves in stocks, has invested $9 billion in fracking companies, according to organizations Climate Alliance Switzerland and Eko.

The SNB should exit them because there’s a consensus against the technology in Switzerland, the activists said. Some of the institution’s private shareholders handed over the petition Monday at the SNB office in Zurich, they said. 

While the protesters say 14 of the 26 Swiss cantons have banned fracking or positioned themselves against it in other ways, the central bank doubts that a consensus against the technology exists in the country. It’s banned coal mining from its investments, but refuses to do the same for fracking.

“We are investing our reserves in a way that they can support monetary policy at any time,” deputy rate-setter Thomas Moser said last Thursday. “We exclude investments which violate values which are widely recognized in society.”

He said the central bank “regularly checks” its investment guidelines, “because values can change.” 

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