Finance
A Digital Drive to Reform the $11 Trillion Global Gold Market
The World Gold Council has a plan to make trading more liquid, starting with the $500 billion in gold bars beneath London. Critics say it’ll meet stiff resistance.
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Trading on one of the world’s oldest markets depends on a network of high-security vaults located underneath Greater London. There, some 50,000 gold bars, each worth more than $650,000, change hands every day among the four big banks in charge of processing transactions.
The system, which includes some $500 billion worth of gold stored in locations, has been trundling along with little change for most of the past two decades. David Tait, who heads the World Gold Council, the main lobby group for miners of the metal, thinks it’s time for an overhaul.