As anticipated earlier this week, the race to replace the London silver price fix is finally over, as the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) has chosen the joint Chicago Mercantile Exchange/Thomson Reuters bid to replace the current 117-year-old price process, which formally ends on August 14.
In a statement Friday, the LBMA said the joint tender met the requested criteria, in that it was electronic, auction-based and auditable, while remaining tradeable with an increased number of direct participants.
At present, the silver fix is set each day at noon by three large banks, which are Deutsche Bank, HSBC and Scotiabank by way of a daily conference call.
The CME Group will provide a price platform and methodology, while Thomson Reuters will be responsible for administration and governance, it added.
Thomson Reuters already works with the LBMA to administer Gold Forward Offered Rates (GOFO), a rate used in swap deals.
The association will develop a process of accreditation for silver price participants, with the legal aspects of this division of responsibilities to be finalized prior to the new price mechanism going live.
Financial benchmarks have come under strong scrutiny from regulators around Europe and the United States since 2012, when it became public that British banks had rigged the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor).