The gold vaults hold around 400,000 bars of gold.
Overview
The Bank of England provides safe custody for the United Kingdom’s gold reserves, and for other central banks. This supports financial stability by providing central banks with access to the liquidity of the London gold market. The Bank of England also provides gold accounts to certain commercial firms that facilitate access for central banks to the London gold market.
Can I buy gold from the Bank of England?
In the past you could exchange banknotes for the equivalent value in gold at the Bank of England, but this has not been possible since the early 1930s.
You can, however, hold a real gold bar in the Bank of England Museum.
Who owns the gold at the Bank of England?
The Bank of England only owns two gold bars. Both of these are on display in their museum. Instead, the Bank of England store the UK’s gold reserves on behalf of HM TreasuryOpens in a new window, and also store gold bars on behalf of other central banks and certain commercial firms.
Why does the Bank of England store gold?
Gold is an important asset of foreign exchange reserves. By providing safe gold custody the Bank of England are supporting central bank reserve management and thus international financial stability.
London is the global centre for gold trading. The Bank of England supports financial stability by providing central banks with access to the liquidity of the London gold market. We also provide gold accounts to certain commercial firms that facilitate access for central banks to the London gold market.
Gold that we hold on behalf of our customers does not appear on our balance sheet. This is because we provide gold storage on an allocated basis, meaning that the customer retains the title to specific gold bars in our vaults, rather than a claim on the Bank for a certain weight of gold.
The following article, from the LBMA’s magazine “The Alchemist”Opens in a new window features Victoria Cleland talking about the Bank’s role in the Gold market.
Access to gold accounts
- The Bank primarily offers gold accounts to central bank customers. This is to support financial stability by providing central banks with secure custody for their gold reserves and access to the liquidity of the London gold market (particularly given the Bank’s location).
- To facilitate, either directly or indirectly, access for central banks to the liquidity of the London gold market, the Bank will also consider providing gold accounts to certain commercial firms. In deciding whether to provide an account, the Bank will be guided by the following criteria.
a. The firm’s day to day activities must support the liquidity of the London gold market.
b. Specifically, the Bank may have regard to a number of factors including but not limited to: evidence of active or prospective trading with a central bank customer; or whether the firm has committed to honour buy and sell prices. - Access to a gold account remains at the sole discretion of the Bank.
- The Bank will review the above periodically.
