The World Gold Council and the London Metal Exchange (LME), together with Goldman Sachs, ICBC Standard Bank, Morgan Stanley, Natixis, OSTC and Societe Generale, today announce their intention to introduce a suite of exchange-traded and centrally-cleared precious metals products.

The initiative has been driven by the need for greater market transparency, to support and aid ongoing regulatory change, provide additional robustness to the precious metals market, broaden market access, make trading more capital efficient and trade lifecycle management easier. LMEprecious will be developed to accommodate the interests of the full range of market stakeholders and to reinforce the strengths of the London market.

Today’s announcement follows an extended process of engagement with major market participants and users, and the LMEprecious service has been designed based on extensive consultation with core market players. Advanced discussions are taking place with a number of other leading institutions that have indicated their strong support for this initiative.