De Javasche Bank

The Bank of Java (DJB, for ) was a note-issuing bank in the Dutch East Indies, founded in 1828 and nationalized in 1951 by the government of Indonesia to become the newly independent country’s central bank, later renamed Bank Indonesia. For more than a century, the Bank of Java was the central institution of the Dutch East Indies’ financial system, alongside the “big three” commercial banks (the Netherlands Trading Society, the Nederlandsch-Indische Handelsbank, and the Nederlandsch-Indische Escompto Maatschappij). It was both a note-issuing bank and a commercial bank.

Background

The first bank founded in the Indonesian archipelago was the , established in 1746 to support trading activity. In 1752, it was renamed (), and was given a mandate to extend loans to employees of the Dutch East India Company. In 1818, that institution closed as a consequence of financial crisis.

Dutch colonial period

King William I of the Netherlands granted the right to create a private bank in the Indies in 1826, which was named . It was founded on and later became the bank of issue of the Dutch East Indies, issuing and regulating the Netherlands Indies gulden.

In 1829, it opened branch offices in Semarang and Surabaya. Later branch offices opened in Padang (1864), Makassar (1864), Cirebon (1866), Solo (1867), Pasuruan (1867), Yogyakarta (1879), Pontianak (1906), Bengkalis (1907), Medan (1907), Banjarmasin (1907), Tanjungbalai (1908), Tanjungpura (1908), Bandung (1909), Palembang (1909), Manado (1910), Malang (1916), Kutaraja / Banda Aceh (1918), Kediri (1923), Pematang Siantar (1923), and Madiun (1928).

Until 1891, the DJB was represented in the mainland Netherlands by the Netherlands Trading Society. That year, it opened an office in Amsterdam, which in 1922 was converted into a subsidiary known as or . Some time later, DJB opened an office in New York.

Under the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies during World War II, the occupation authorities closed the Bank of Java and all other Dutch and Western banks in March 1942, and endeavored to seize as much as possible of their assets. They replaced it with an ''ad hoc'' central bank for occupied Indonesia, named ( ja, 南方開発金庫, ). The Bank of Java could only reopen after the surrender of Japan in the late summer of 1945.

Nationalization and aftermath

The Bank of Java was nationalized by the Sukarno government in 1951, and renamed Bank Nasional Indonesia on . By that time, Europeans still represented four-fifths of the Bank's employees.

In 1962, Bank Indonesia moved to a new head office building. Its former main building on Station Square in Jakarta was left to deteriorate. It was renovated in the 2000s and repurposed as Museum Bank Indonesia, which opened on .

In 1966, the bank's affiliate in Amsterdam became the , later renamed . It was eventually liquidated in 2008.

Leadership

Presidents of the Bank of Java have included:
* Chr. de Haan (1828-1838)
* C.J. Smulders (1838-1851)
* (1851-1863)
* (1863-1868)
* J.W.C. Diepenheim (1868-1870)
* (1870-1873)
* (1873-1889)
* (1889-1893)
* D. Groeneveld (1893-1898)
* J. Reijsenbach (1899-1906)
* Gerard Vissering (1906-1912)
* (1912-1924)
* (1924-1929)
* (1929-1945)
* J.C. van Waveren (1946)
* R.E. Smits (1946-1949)
* A. Houwink (1949-1951)
* Sjafruddin Prawiranegara (1951-1953)

Buildings

The main building of the Bank of Java in Batavia was erected in 1909 on a design by Eduard Cuypers and , on the location of the former city hospital. The building was comprehensively remodeled in 1926 was a new façade on Station Square. The head offices of the three large banks were built on adjacent lots in the 1920s and 1930s, namely the Nederlandsch-Indische Escompto Maatschappij to the north, the Netherlands Trading Society to the south, and the Nederlandsch-Indische Handelsbank to the northeast.

The Amsterdam office was opened in 1891 at 60 Reguliersdwarsstraat, in a suite of offices hosted by the Hollandsche Hypotheekbank. It moved to Keizersgracht 668 in April 1892. In 1920, DJB expanded to the nearby building at Keizersgracht 664, and in 1937-1939, the bank erected a new office building on numbers 664-666, designed in 1936 by the architecture firm of and Jakob van der Linden. The successor entity, Indover Bank, remained there until 1992, when it moved to Stadhouderskade.

File:COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Kantoor van de Javasche Bank in Batavia TMnr 60047649.jpg, Head office in Batavia, before remodeling in 1926
File:2016 De Javasche Bank.jpg, Interior hall (2016)
File:Bank Indonesia Museum inner court.jpg, Inner court (2018)
File:Bank Indonesia Museum stained-glass window.jpg, Stained glass window (2018)
File:Keizersgracht 666-668, kantoorgebouw "De Javasche Bank" (1937-39).jpg, Keizersgracht 666-668, former office of the Bank of Java in Amsterdam
File:COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Kantoor van de Javasche Bank in Bandoeng TMnr 60016843.jpg, Branch office in Bandung, built in 1918; now a museum
File:COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Het gemeentehuis en het kantoor van de Javasche Bank TMnr 10015457.jpg, Branch office in Medan
File:Bank Indonesia in Medan.jpg, The same building, now Town Hall and Bank Indonesia branch
File:Gedung BI Banjarmasin.jpg, Branch office in Banjarmasin
File:Bank Indonesia Solo 2009 Bennylin 13.jpg, Branch office in Surakarta
File:Bank Indonesia Yogyakarta.jpg, Branch office in Yogyakarta
File:Bank Indonesia Lama di Padang.JPG, Branch office in Padang
File:COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Kantoor van Bank Indonesia TMnr 10015484.jpg, Branch office in Palembang (1950s)
File:COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Het kantoor van de Javasche Bank in Soerabaja TMnr 10015463.jpg, Branch office in Surabaya
File:COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM De Javasche Bank te Malang. TMnr 60005905.jpg, Branch office in Malang
File:COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Gebouw van de Javasche Bank in Koetaradja Noord-Sumatra. TMnr 60008371.jpg, Branch office in Banda Aceh

Banknotes

File:25 Guilders - Javasche Bank (1 April 1920) - Baldwin's Hong Kong Coin Auction (2012).jpg, 25 Guilders, 1920
File:Collectie NMvWereldculturen, TM-6017-2, Bankbiljet, 'Bankbiljet van de Javasche Bank, ontwerp van Lion Cachet', 1934.jpg, 10 Guilders, 1934
File:Collectie NMvWereldculturen, TM-6017-4, Bankbiljet, 'Bankbiljet van de Javasche Bank, ontwerp van Lion Cachet', 1935.jpg, 5 Guilders, 1935
File:Collectie NMvWereldculturen, TM-6017-1, Bankbiljet, 'Bankbiljet van de Javasche Bank, ontwerp van Lion Cachet', 1937.jpg, 5 Guilders, 1937
File:Collectie NMvWereldculturen, TM-6017-6, Bankbiljet, 'Bankbiljet van De Javasche Bank, ontwerp van Lion Cachet', 1938.jpg, 50 Guilders, 1938

See also

* Banque de l'Algérie
* Ottoman Bank
* Bank of Indochina
* Netherlands Indies gulden
* Japanese government-issued currency in the Dutch East Indies
* History of the Indonesian rupiah

Notes

{{RefList

Defunct banks of the Netherlands
Defunct companies of the Dutch East Indies