LONDON—ICBC Standard Bank PLC said on Monday it is buying a precious-metals vault from Barclays PLC’s, in the latest move by the Chinese bank to increase its role in the market’s infrastructure.

The move makes parent ICBC, the world’s biggest bank by assets, the first Chinese lender to own a vault in London and extends its influence in precious metals from pricing to storage. With China the largest consumer of many metals, the country’s banks have increasingly bid to own or help run the infrastructure in these markets.

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