London’s electronic gold fix

March 19, 2015
Six banks are set to join London’s electronic gold fix when it starts tomorrow, administrator ICE Benchmark said today.

The four existing banks that run the almost 100-year old gold fix process will stay on for the transition.  They include HSBC, Barclays, Scotiabank and Societe Generale. Another two banks, likely to be US banks, will also join. The ICE Benchmark Administration said no Chinese banks will take part.

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The twice-daily fix is used as a daily benchmark for buyers and sellers in the global gold market.

A panel run by ICE Benchmark Administration will chair the fix, made up of internal and external experts, it said.

Critics have long argued that the whole fix process was opaque and vulnerable to market abuse.

In May 2014 the UK’s financial regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority, found that a Barclays trader had manipulated the London gold fix, and the British bank was fined £26m.

The London Gold Fixing.

The London Gold Fixing (or Gold Fix) is the setting of the price of gold that used to be held on the premises of Nathan Mayer Rothschild & Sons by the members of The London Gold Market Fixing Ltd. However (since 1919), in 2004, Nathan Mayer Rothschild exited the precious metals business in London and as part of that sold its place on the fixing to Barclays.