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.
-Write to Ese Erheriene at ese.erheriene@wsj.com