Dutch central bank moves €14.9 billion in cash and gold to new vault complex

De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) moved a combination of gold and cash worth nearly 15 billion euros to secure facilities in Zeist. The central bank of the Netherlands moved over 200 tons of gold bars and gold coins from a temporary facility in Haarlem to the new DNB Cash Centre over the past four weeks, the DNB said on Monday. A strategic supply of banknotes worth over 4.5 billion euros was also moved from Haarlem to the military location, Camp New Amsterdam.

It marks the end of a process that started in October 2020, when the DNB moved the items from the DNB's headquarters facility in Amsterdam to a location in Haarlem that used to be used for printing money. That move included 14,166 gold bars, each weighing 12.5 kilograms. Another 1,006 trays and cases of gold coins were also moved as the DNB began the renovation and rebuild of its headquarters. The banknotes were also moved.

"The temporary storage in Haarlem made the renovation of the DNB office in Amsterdam less complex," the central bank said. Just a few months earlier, its employees were set up in an office complex in the Amstel district of Amsterdam. The headquarters renovation should be completed before 2025, and will be more accessible to the public as the reserve of valuables is no longer located there.

The DNB will be keeping 31 percent of its total gold reserve in Zeist. The equivalent amount is held by the Federal Reserve Bank in New York. A combined total of 38 percent of the DNB's gold is also kept in London and Ottawa.

Aside from the storage of reserves, the DNB Cash Centre was created to check and sort euro banknotes, and to deliver cash and coins to transit companies for use in banks, ATMs and retail. It will also be the home of a new National Analysis Centre for investigating counterfeit banknotes and coins. Construction of the DNB Cash Centre began in the autumn of 2019, and is now fully operational, the DNB said.