LBMA members back tokenised gold but seek legal certainty and safeguards

LONDON, Oct 29 (Reuters) - Members of the London Bullion Market Association broadly support exploring tokenised gold, particularly as a way to improve collateral efficiency, but add that any rollout must preserve confidence in the underlying physical metal, avoid fragmenting market liquidity and provide legal and regulatory certainty.

• In a response to a consultation by Britain's financial regulator on the use of tokenisation in precious metals markets, the LBMA said its members differed on the scale of the opportunity, pace of adoption and where tokenisation could add most value

• Banks and wholesale market participants saw potential advantages in improved mobility of allocated gold, easier use of bullion as collateral and delivery-versus-payment settlement against tokenised cash

• However, several members argued that the existing market already operates efficiently and that tokenisation's strongest use case may be in making gold more usable as collateral rather than changing the way it is traded

• More cautious respondents warned against any changes that could undermine confidence in physical gold or affect market liquidity or the functioning of the wider precious-metals market

• The Loco London market, the world's largest over-the-counter gold trading hub, trades $200 billion of bullion a day on average.  The LBMA maintains the Good Delivery List of refineries, whose gold or silver bars are eligible for settlement in the London market

• Common themes among LBMA members on the topic of tokenisation included the need to avoid unintended fragmentation, legal certainty around ownership and insolvency, as well as clarity on collateral treatment

(Reporting by Polina Devitt;Editing by Kirsten Donovan)