Submitted by cpowell on Thu, 2015-03-19 04:36.

New Era of Gold Benchmarking to Start with Handful of Pioneers

By Clara Denina

Reuters

Thursday, March 19, 2015

LONDON -- A handful of banks will start setting gold prices electronically on Friday, sources with direct knowledge of the matter said, as Intercontinental Exchange completes a sweeping change to London's bullion benchmarks and dispenses with the century-old gold "fix."

Since 1919, representatives from four or five banks have agreed a twice-daily price on which their customers -- producers, consumers, and investors -- could trade and value gold.

Sweeping reform triggered by a regulatory push for more transparency after the Libor interest rate-rigging scandal broke in 2012, saw banks stop acting as both data providers and market makers. ...

Banks will still submit orders during the process, as they currently do.

"I would like to think (there will be) more than the current (four) ... but we'll have to wait and see," a source with direct knowledge of the matter said.

Current providers of the gold "fix," Barclays, HSBC, Bank of Nova Scotia, and Societe Generale, declined to comment on whether they will participate. ...

The LBMA, which will retain intellectual property of the new benchmark, had said that 11 entities intended to participate in the new mechanism from the start.

Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Bank of China International and China Construction Bank, which are ordinary members of the LBMA, were unlikely to be in the list of new participants at this stage, the first source said. ...

... For the remainder of the report:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/19/gold-fix-idUSL6N0QK3O620150319



ADVERTISEMENT USAGold: Coins and bullion since 1973



Please call 1-800-869-5115x100 and ask for the trading desk, or visit:

http://www.USAGold.com

USAGold: Great prices, quick delivery -- all the time.



Mines and Money Conference

Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre

1 Expo Drive, Wan Chai

Hong Kong, China

Monday-Friday, March 23-27, 2015

http://www.minesandmoney.com/hongkong/

* * *

Support GATA by purchasing recordings of the proceedings of the 2014 New Orleans Investment Conference:

https://jeffersoncompanies.com/landing/2014-av-powell

Or by purchasing DVDs of GATA's London conference in August 2011 or GATA's Dawson City conference in August 2006:

http://www.goldrush21.com/order.html

Support GATA by purchasing recordings of the proceedings of the 2014 New Orleans Investment Conference:

https://jeffersoncompanies.com/landing/2014-av-powell

Or by purchasing a colorful GATA T-shirt:

http://gata.org/tshirts

Or a colorful poster of GATA's full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2009:

http://gata.org/node/wallstreetjournal

Help keep GATA going

GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at:

http://www.gata.org

To contribute to GATA, please visit:

http://www.gata.org/node/16