Today the Perth Mint and Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), one of the world’s top-10 listed exchange groups measured by market capitalisation, announced that they would be collaborating on developing new exchange traded precious metals products.
The first product is mostly likely to be a gold futures contract deliverable in Perth. Given the focus the gold community has on futures markets, and Comex in particular, I’m sure there will be a lot of interest is this Aussie gold contract. As we are in the process of talking to the market about what features they would like, it is not possible to get into contract specifications at this time but I can make some general comments about the approach ASX and Perth Mint will be taking.
Firstly, the Perth Mint’s role will be solely on supporting the physical delivery part of the contract – we are not issuing the contract or market making on it. ASX will list the contract and market it to their customers in Australia and Asia and traders worldwide.
While this contract will trade 24 hours a day on ASX’s globally connected network, given Australia is the second largest gold producer in the world and that the Perth Mint refines between 300 to 400 tonnes per year, we are sure that there will be a lot of interest in this contract from the physical traders in the Asian region.
The integrated nature of the Mint’s operations also means that unlike other futures contracts, which only offer warehousing, we will be able to offer shorts and longs flexible physical delivery choices that take advantage of the Mint’s refining and manufacturing capabilities.
The Perth Mint’s Western Australian government guarantee will also give comfort to longs who want to stand for physical delivery and store gold with us. In addition, the fact that ASX backs its clearing with its own capital (which is not something all exchanges offer) will reduce counterparty and systemic risk.
The combination of the Perth Mint’s strength in the physical market and ASX’s vertical integration of trading, clearing and settlement will introduce some real competition into the gold futures space. For more information see the official media release here.
