Shanghai Gold Benchmark Price – New Kid on the Block

Jon Blogosphere, Gold, Market Commentary, Precious Metals

Exactly 19 months to the day after the International Board of the Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE) held its first full trading session on 19 September 2014, the Shanghai Gold Exchange launched the Shanghai Gold Benchmark Price auction on19 April 2016. In China, the number 19 is very auspicious since it consists of lucky number 1, which means origin or beginning, and lucky number 9 meaning everlasting, eternity, or longevity.
In another example of calculated Chinese planning, the SGE first announced plans to launch its own gold fixing auction on 11 March 2015. This was the week immediately prior to the launch of the LBMA Gold Price auction on 20 March 2015, an event which occurred without any Chinese banks being present in the initial participant list. This lack of Chinese banks as initial participants in the LBMA Gold Price auctions was despite the Chinese banks having made it clear in October 2014 that they wanted to be present in the London auction on launch day:
‘It’s been very welcome to see that quite a few banks in China are very interested in taking part. They said they definitely wanted to be there on day one for gold’ [Ruth Crowell, LBMA CEO, October 2014 interview with MetalBulletin quoted here] Two Chinese banks eventually joined the LBMA Gold Price auction, Bank of China on 22 June 2015, and China Construction Bank on 30 October 2015, with Industrial and Commercial Bank of China(ICBC) tee’d up to join the LBMA Gold Price auction next month on 16 May 2016. However, sources in the gold market have indicated that the Chinese banks, and others, had difficulty establishing the necessary credit lines with the incumbent bullion banks that are a LBMA perquisite for being a direct participant in the LBMA auction. This need for bilateral credit lines between auction participants is not something that the Shanghai Gold Benchmark Price suffers from, since it is using a central clearing model, something that the LBMA have paid lip-service to but that has never materialised (nor will it if the LBMA has its way).

This post was published at Bullion Star on 23 Apr 2016.