Recently, David Tait, CEO of the World Gold Council, gave a speech at Tsinghua PBCSF Financiers’ Forum and Global Competence Lecture Series, titled "Gold 247-Integrity, Accessibility, and Fungibility". Zhang Xiaoyan, Chair Professor of Finance and associate dean at PBC School of Finance, presided over the event.
In his speech, David Tait introduced the "Gold 247" project launched by the World Gold Council. The project is to further improve the global gold market, and explore new structures, new transaction modes and supply chain management methods for a responsible and sustainable development. The program aims to ensure the global gold industry keeps with the expectations of end users, the financial services industry and regulators.
David Tait mentioned that the global market transformation of "Gold 247" includes three major features - integrity, accessibility, and fungibility. Relying on the digital development of gold and the digital transformation of gold market infrastructure, "Gold 247" will greatly strengthen investors' trust and release more demand.
David Tait pointed out that the gold industry should operate under the high standards of integrity and accessibility. Consumers need to know where the gold they purchase comes from, who the producers are, and whether they have purchased it in a responsible and sustainable manner. Physical gold must have 'sufficient accessibility', where people can more conveniently benefit to increase wealth, reduce risk, and stabilize assets. The namely full accessibility includes 24-hour gold trading and the full utilization of modern trading channels, such as digital investment accounts and mobile applications.
He emphasized the critical importance of digitization in gold industry and market infrastructure, and the need to work together to establish a global digital standard to eliminate market fragmentation, and increase transparency, trust, and participation. In the followed dialogue, Zhang Xiaoyan and David Tait discussed the challenges that the gold industry will face in digitization.
