Raising the bar on trust and transparency in the retail gold market
Over the years, the World Gold Council has been working to enhance trust and transparency across the gold market – through a number of different projects and initiatives.
We know from our comprehensive research that some individual investors, who are thinking of buying gold for the first time, come up against trust and education related barriers. Nearly half of these would-be-gold-investors cite a lack of trust in retail gold investment products or in the businesses that sell them. Furthermore, two-thirds said a lack of education and awareness hold them back from buying bullion.
It was these very insights that led us to create a framework to improve understanding of the responsible gold market and create a voluntary and adaptable structure for dealers to demonstrate to consumers that they are credible and trustworthy. This framework, called the Responsible Gold Investment Principles (RGIPs), covers a range of topics including Fairness and Integrity; Transparency; Protection of Client Assets; Responsible Gold Sourcing; Regulatory Compliance; Commercial Prudence and Operational Professionalism.
These Principles, which provide a foundational guidance to best practices in the gold industry, have been widely recognised and onboarded, gaining support in some of the world’s biggest retail markets, including India, North America, Germany and the UAE.
We are now progressing this project to take the principles from being a voluntary framework to creating a standardised and globally recognised audit framework for gold dealers. To do so, we have partnered with the British Standards Institution (BSI). Once finalised, the BSI framework ,will allow retail gold dealers to independently demonstrate to customers and others that they meet the industry best practices set out in the RGIPs.
As part of our commitment to transparency and raising the bar on standards in the gold industry, we have launched an industry consultation for the assurance framework, hosted on the BSI website. Have your say and sign up to complete the consultation which is now open until 31st January 2025: Homepage - Gold Dealer Assurance Standard Consultation.
Retail gold investment accounts for more than a quarter of annual demand. In 2023 alone, retail investors acquired almost 1,200 tonnes of gold, worth approximately $74bn. Just think of the potential for increasing this level of demand if we can solve for the trust and understanding barriers to purchase, especially with new investors to gold. We believe there is significant potential to drive further investment in gold bullion products with the help of initiatives such as the Gold Dealer Assurance Standard.
Source: https://www.gold.org