Bank of Java

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).

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).

[4] 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.

[1]: 706  They replaced it with an ad hoc central bank for occupied Indonesia, named Nanpo Kaihatsu Ginko [jp] (Japanese: 南方開発金庫, lit.

[3] Presidents of the Bank of Java have included: The main building of the Bank of Java in Batavia was erected in 1909, on a design by Eduard Cuypers and Marius Jan Hulswit [nl], on the location of the former city hospital.

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 Christiaan Posthumus Meyjes jr. [nl] and Jakob van der Linden.