Earlier this year, the Netherland’s central bank (DNB) moved 78 tonnes of its gold held by the New York Fed and a further 8 tonnes from Ottawa to London. Interestingly, DNB sold 59 tonnes of gold stored in New York and bought the equivalent amount which it stored at the Bank of England. The remainder amounting to 27 tonnes were shipped from New York and Ottawa to DNB’s vault, and an equivalent but different 27 tonnes were then shipped to London. Ottawa was probably a tidying-up exercise.
Presumably, the 27 tonnes were to be examined and a metal audit made. If so, then at the least the DNB suspects or knows that the bar identities shipped from North America did not tally with their own records.
The reasons given for the transfers to London were increasing geopolitical unrest and better tradability. But this is not DNB’s first transfer from New York. Following Germany’s difficulties in retrieving a minor amount of its gold from New York, in 2014 the DNB recovered 122.5 tonnes, succeeding where the Bundesbank had failed, presumably benefiting from the bad publicity over the latter’s experience suffered by the New York Fed.
It is increasingly clear that there is a problem with custody at the Federal Bank of New York. Earlier this year the Banque de France announced that it had sold 129
