The White paper acknowledges that gold has already undergone meaningful digitalization
The World Gold Council (WGC) recently announced a pioneering initiative to build new market infrastructure designed to unlock the next era of digital gold’s development.
WGC has co-authored a White paper titled Digital Gold: The Case for a Shared Infrastructure with Boston Consulting Group (BCG) which explores ‘Gold as a Service’, a new platform to support the issuance and operation of scalable, interoperable digital gold products.
Gold as a Service would act as an open platform, connecting the physical custody of gold with the digital systems used to issue and manage gold-backed products.
Compliance
By standardising essential market processes such as custody coordination, reconciliation, compliance and redemption, the model aims to reduce operational complexity, improve access and enable greater consistency across digital gold products, a press note stated.
The White paper acknowledges that gold has already undergone meaningful digitalisation, with trading, clearing and recordkeeping now largely electronic and a growing range of digital gold products such as tokens, now available.
Yet despite these innovations, digital gold remains limited in scale largely due to structural constraints. Launching and operating digital gold products remains complex, with limited standardisation and reduced fungibility restricting its ability to integrate with modern financial systems.
Response to challenges
Gold as a Service is proposed as a response to these challenges. Recognising the physical nature of gold, it is designed to modernise how gold integrates with an increasingly digital financial ecosystem, while preserving the asset’s foundational attributes that have underpinned its role and relevance for millennia.
“Shared infrastructure can help gold become more accessible, more easily traded and fully integrated into modern financial systems, ensuring it remains as relevant tomorrow as it has been for millennia,” asserted David Tait, Chief Executive Officer, World Gold Council.
“The question is no longer whether gold will be digital, it’s how it can participate in modern financial systems without compromising physical integrity,” added Matthias Tauber, Managing Director and Senior Partner, BCG.
