Monday, July 02, 2007

Dutch central bank closes last cash-outlets....

A couple of days ago, the central bank closed its last cash-outlets. See the press release here. This marks a period of 140 years during which the central bank started out as a single office in Amsterdam, then on demand of politicians expanded its role as a provider of cash until it had a whole bunch of local offices.

And then, deciding that all this stuff be left to the market, it closed down its branches. So now the money couriers in the Netherlands must all drive to either a bank money center or Amsterdam (to deposit cash). Funny thing is that the nearby option for Maastricht banks to deposit their euro's in Aachen or Brussels is not allowed by the central banks......

... those same institutions that claim that banks have not achieved a sufficient harmonisation in European payments are unwilling to harmonize their own cash processing rules out of fear for job loss in their own house.

Some Europe this is.