Quantity, quality and location of the Bank of Italy's gold bullion

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Italy's gold reserves now weigh 2,452 tonnes - 4.1 tonnes in the form of coins (871,713 coins, or 'monetized' gold) and the remainder in bars - after 141 tonnes were transferred to the ECB in 1999.

Most of the bars are in the traditional shape of a trapezoidal prism, although a fair number are rectangular parallelepipeds, American bricks or British bars. Their individual weight ranges from 4.2 to 19.7 kilograms, with an average of just over 12.5. The average millesimal fineness of the bars, denoting the percentage of fine gold in the alloy, is 996.2, with many bars five nines fine (999.99).

At the Bank of Italy's head office at 91 Via Nazionale, 1,100 tonnes of gold owned by the Bank are stored, including all the 'monetized' gold as well as part of the reserves assigned to the ECB.

As regards location, the Bank's gold bullion holdings are distributed as follows:

Table 2 – Location

Depositary

Tonnes

%

United Kingdom

141.2 

5.76  

Switzerland

149.3 

6.09  

United States

1,061.5 

43.29  

Italy

1,100 

44.86  

Total

2,452 

100  

It was decided to store more than half of the bullion with other central banks not only for historical reasons (the gold was purchased there), but also as part of a policy of diversification designed to minimize risk. The chosen locations also reflect the importance of these financial marketplaces for international gold transactions.