Austria to repatriate £3.5bn of gold reserves in Britain

Austria's central bank is planning to repatriate £3.5bn (€4.9bn, $5.4bn) of its gold reserves stored in London over the next five years.

The move to bring back the country's 80% of entire gold reserves from Britain comes as auditors warned about the risk of keeping the bulk of gold reserves in a foreign nation. In February, the Austrian court of audit warned of a "heightened concentration risk" related to storing a major portion of the country's reserves in Britain.

The Austrian National Bank plans to increase its gold stock to half the total of 280 tonnes. Vienna would begin to repatriate 92.4 tonnes of gold this summer, and a further 47.6 tonnes will be transferred from Britain to Switzerland.

Following the plan, Britain will keep 30% of Austria's £6.7bn gold reserves, while Austria will hold 50% and Switzerland 20%.

It is expected that the gold bars will be taken out of the country in five-tonne batches on heavily guarded planes.

In 2013, Germany announced its plan to repatriate all of its gold reserves in France and some in the US, as the country looks to keep at least 50% of its gold stock at home by 2020.

The Bank of England looks after much of the world's gold as most central banks send some of the stocks to London, given the city's fame as a major international centre for the gold trade. Having the biggest bullion market in the world, London attracts buyers from Europe, Asia, Africa and the US.