De Nederlandsche Bank carried out gold repatriation of 86 tonnes from North America to London between March and August this year, moving the metal into the vaults of the Bank of England. Olaf Sleijpen said, “We expect that we will never need to use them, but we do need to strengthen our resilience and preparedness.”
The Dutch central bank said the gold was moved “in view of increasing geopolitical unrest” and to make it “readily available for use in a crisis situation.” The Netherlands held about 313 tonnes of gold in the US and Canada combined before the relocation, so the transfer shifted a large slice of reserves into one of the world’s biggest custodial hubs.
Bank of England vaults
London was the chosen destination because it is a major trading centre, and the Bank of England is one of the largest custodians of gold in the world. About 400,000 bars of gold worth more than £200bn sit underneath the Bank of England, and industry surveys by the World Gold Council say the Bank of England remains the most popular vaulting location.
De Nederlandsche Bank also said that more than 27 tonnes were physically transferred from the US and Canada to Zeist during the same period, and a similar quantity was sent from Zeist to London. That sequence shows the move was handled as a staged transfer rather than a single shift, with bars moving first into Dutch handling and then onward to London.
Joseph Cavatoni on motivations
Joseph Cavatoni said wars and trade tensions were “playing into some of these decisions,” but he added that it “didn't top the list” of motivating factors. He also said inflation, interest rates and having gold in a place where it can be traded quickly were part of the calculation, and he told the, “I don't get a sense that there's an impending doom.”
He added, “what I do think is people are being better educated around how to manage their reserve assets, growing their reserve assets, and actually thinking more effectively around how to make the most of those assets.” That leaves the Dutch move in a broader pattern already seen elsewhere: France announced earlier this year that it had removed its gold reserves from the US to home shores, and Germany's Bundesbank transferred more than 216 tonnes of gold from storage locations abroad over a few years ending in 2016, including 111 tonnes from New York and 105 tonnes from Paris.
Netherlands reserve question
During the Cold War, some European central banks moved part of their gold holdings to New York, and the latest Dutch transfer runs in the opposite direction. De Nederlandsche Bank has now put 86 tonnes in London, but the amount of the Netherlands' gold reserves that will remain in North America after the relocation is not specified.
