New Gold Benchmark to Come Into Force in March 2015, Says LBMA

By Ese Erheriene

LONDON--The new electronic daily gold price is set to launch in March, the London Bullion Market Association said.

The LBMA Gold Price, which will be administered by ICE Benchmark Administration, will render extinct the existing gold fix.

The benchmark is used by a range of firms, including mining companies and exchange-traded funds. An important aspect of administering the price will be increasing the number of participants, especially from key markets.

There has been a "high level of interested participants for the March launch," Ruth Crowell, Chief Executive of the LBMA, said Monday.

"Expanding the number of participants in the auction will increase the transparency and robustness of the data used to calculate the benchmark, giving a better representation of the market price," said Finbarr Hutcheson, President of ICE Benchmark Administration.

The gold market is the last of the precious metals to go electronic. In October, the London Metal Exchange--owned by Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Ltd. (0388.HK) won the right to manage the platinum and palladium fixes; and in August of last year, CME Group Inc. (CME) with Thomson Reuters Corp. (TRI) won the right to manage an electronic silver price.

The new mechanism will replace the twice-daily conference calls between a group of banks: Bank of Nova Scotia-ScotiaMocatta, Barclays Bank PLC, HSBC Bank U.S.A., and Societe Generale SA. This telephone price-fixing has existed since September 1919.

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