Allocated Bullion Exchange, the world’s first global institutional electronic exchange for allocated physical precious metals, has today announced established Hong Kong based physical precious metals trading house Finemetal Asia as a member of the ABX. The strategic partnership will extend the liquidity provision for members of the ABX and enhance relevant real-time price discovery.

The announcement of the collaboration with Finemetal Asia comes soon after the soft-launch of the ABX, an exchange that has redefined the way physical bullion is traded globally.  The ABX provides participants with an online environment featuring real-time price discovery, price transparency, institutional liquidity and a point-click-trade electronic process for allocated physical bullion. Finemetal Asia is one of the region's leading institutional-facing liquidity providers and trades exclusively in physical gold, silver, platinum and palladium. An established name in the Asian market, Finemetal Asia has a special agreement for distribution of precious metals products of renowned gold fabricator Argor Heraeus. As a Full Member and Liquidity Provider of the ABX, Finemetal Asia will be providing liquidity on the ABX for a range of physical precious metals contracts.

Commenting on the announcement, Tom Coughlin, CEO of ABX, said: “What the ABX is setting out to do is to modernize, globalize and integrate the precious metals market. Liquidity is the cornerstone of our offering and the addition of Finemetal Asia to the ABX, alongside other key members, continues to improve the pricing and liquidity of the physical bullion contracts on the ABX.”

“Among the first members of the exchange, Finemetal Asia has an established reputation as a regional leader and we look forward to growing our business together in the Asia-Pacific region. The market-leading pricing and deep liquidity made available on the ABX continues to attract a growing membership base of physical bullion industry participants, asset managers, family offices and hedge funds, and we look forward to confirming further partnerships soon.”

Pádraig J Seif, CEO of Finemetal Asia Ltd, commented: “Our deal with the ABX comes as the result of a successful test period as a liquidity provider for the ABX Trading Hubs of Hong Kong, Singapore, Switzerland and Australia, during which we saw a substantial increase in turnover. As a result of the high demand experienced during this test phase, we are now in a position to confirm that Finemetal Asia has made available over 20 tonnes of silver and 500 kilos of gold in Hong Kong to increase liquidity on the ABX.”
“The innovative ABX proposition to modernize and improve physical bullion pricing, transparency, access to liquidity and make efficiencies in trading, stands out as a fresh and compelling development in the physical precious metals market.  We are convinced that the new partnership will bring mutual benefits and view this as an opportunity to expand throughout Asia-Pacific together with the ABX. In addition to our recent deal, we are already working with ABX to create new products and to find ways to increase efficiency further, so we see exciting times ahead for both companies. Together the ABX and Finemetal Asia will bring gold trading into the 21st century”.

As a membership-based institutional exchange, ABX offers a modern and revolutionary solution to the precious metals industry. By migrating institutional physical precious metal trade, along with the management of storage and delivery into the electronic environment, ABX breaks down the barriers to entry into the global wholesale physical bullion market via its state-of-the-art technological solution, the MetalDesk trading platform.

ABX’s open and efficient market, offering real-time price discovery and transparency, is modernizing the bullion market. Further information on the exchange is available through the website www.abx.com