London Bullion Market Association (LBMA)

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The London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) is the international trade association for the wholesale precious metals market, representing the banks, brokers, and refiners that make up the London gold and silver markets. It was incorporated in 1987 at the instigation of the Bank of England, and while it is often mistaken for an exchange, it isn’t one: the LBMA doesn’t operate a trading venue itself, but sets standards, accredits refiners, and administers benchmark pricing for a market that remains the largest and most liquid in the world for physical gold and silver.

Today the LBMA counts close to 190 member firms across more than 25 countries, spanning bullion banks, brokers, and precious metals refiners. It is also the accrediting body behind the London Good Delivery List, the industry’s benchmark standard for refiner quality. That said, the LBMA has drawn criticism over the years, including from BullionStar, for how little it discloses about trading volumes, vault holdings, and other data that would give the market real transparency.

This guide covers what the LBMA does, how its Good Delivery accreditation system works, how the LBMA Gold and Silver Price auctions are run, and how the London market compares to other major bullion markets such as COMEX and the Shanghai Gold Exchange.

What Is the LBMA?

The London Bullion Market Association is the international trade association for the wholesale precious metals market. It represents the London Bullion Market, an over-the-counter (OTC) market made up of the London Gold Market and London Silver Market, both still the largest markets of their kind in the world. Members trade with each other directly, on a principal-to-principal basis. This means each side deals directly with the other as the counterparty, rather than through a centralised exchange or order book, which is why the LBMA is often mistakenly described as one.

The association was incorporated in December 1987 at the instigation of the Bank of England, though the Bank has never itself been a member. Its six founding members were London bullion banks active in the market at the time, including N.M. Rothschild & Sons and Mocatta & Goldsmid, and in various guises, the same small group of banks has continued to dominate the association ever since. The LBMA still works closely with the Bank of England, which has its own stake in the London gold market as custodian to a large share of the world’s central bank gold reserves.

Membership is split across three tiers:

Market Making Members commit to quoting live bid and offer prices in gold and silver throughout the London trading day.

Full Members are a broader group of banks, brokers, dealers, and other firms active in the bullion market.

Affiliate Members, a category introduced in 2020 to replace the old “Associate” tier, covers international participants, service providers, and technology firms connected to the market.

The LBMA currently lists 89 Full Members, 93 Affiliate Members, and 12 Market Making Members, spread across 27 countries.

As a trade association rather than a regulator, the LBMA’s central role is to represent its members’ commercial interests while overseeing the standards and infrastructure of the London market, including the Good Delivery List and the daily gold and silver price auctions, both covered below.

LBMA Good Delivery and Accredited Refiners

The LBMA Good Delivery List is the association’s best-known function, and the one most directly relevant to anyone buying gold or silver bars. It’s a list of refiners worldwide that have met the LBMA’s requirements for bar quality, refining capability, and financial standing, an accreditation often referred to as LBMA certification, and one that has become the de facto global benchmark for a trusted gold or silver bar. There are separate lists for gold and silver, and platinum and palladium have their own list, inherited from the London Platinum and Palladium Market, which merged into the LBMA in 2016.

Good Delivery gold bars must weigh between 350 and 430 troy ounces, with 400 troy ounces (roughly 12.5kg) the standard weight traded and stored throughout the wholesale market, such as this 400 oz Heraeus gold bar.

Refiners are accredited by demonstrating minimum production volumes and financial standing, and by having their processes and bar specifications assessed against LBMA standards. This is overseen by a panel of Good Delivery Referees, themselves representatives of major refineries, who meet regularly to assess new applicants and monitor existing listees. Accreditation isn’t permanent: refiners must show continued compliance through annual production and financial reporting, and can be suspended or removed from the list for failing to meet requirements.

Accreditation also requires refiners to comply with the LBMA’s Responsible Sourcing Programme, a mandatory due diligence framework covering anti-money laundering, terrorist financing, and human rights standards across the gold and silver supply chain, alongside growing ESG requirements.

For bullion buyers, the practical significance is straightforward: an LBMA gold bar, meaning one produced by an LBMA-accredited refiner, is recognised globally, easily verified, and generally more liquid to resell. That’s why the large majority of investment-grade gold and silver bars in circulation, including many of those sold by BullionStar, come from LBMA Good Delivery List refiners.

The LBMA Gold and Silver Price

Beyond accrediting refiners, the LBMA’s other major role is owning and overseeing the LBMA Gold Price and LBMA Silver Price. These are benchmark auctions that set the reference price for physical gold and silver trading in London each day, and which are used as a pricing reference by contracts, ETFs, and central banks worldwide.

The LBMA Gold Price is set twice daily, at 10:30 and 15:00 London time, and the LBMA Silver Price once daily, at 12:00 London time. Both are run as electronic auctions administered by ICE Benchmark Administration (IBA) on the LBMA’s behalf: participating banks and brokers submit buy and sell orders through IBA’s trading platform, and an algorithm adjusts the price until supply and demand are broadly matched, at which point the auction settles and a benchmark price is published in US dollars.

The reason the auction exists, rather than relying purely on continuous spot price trading, is to create a single, independently verified reference price at a specific moment each day, one that a large number of market participants can use to value holdings or settle transactions fairly. Mining companies and refiners often price physical gold and silver sales to banks against the LBMA price, ETFs use it to value their holdings and calculate net asset value, and many loan and lease agreements in the bullion market are settled against it. Brokers, and even bullion dealers, will typically reference the LBMA Gold Price or LBMA Silver Price rather than the live spot price when pricing very large wholesale transactions, since it offers a single, transparent, and widely accepted number both sides of a large trade can agree on.

These auctions replaced the historic London Gold Fixing and London Silver Fixing, informal telephone-based processes run directly by a small group of bullion banks that had operated largely unchanged since 1919 (gold) and 1897 (silver). The switch to an electronic, IBA-administered auction happened in 2014 and 2015, following wider scrutiny of benchmark-setting practices across financial markets. The old “fix” terminology, the LBMA fix, is still used informally today, even though the original fixing process no longer exists.

The LBMA Gold Price and LBMA Silver Price are benchmark settlement prices, set once or twice a day, and are separate from the live, continuously updated spot price you’ll see quoted by dealers throughout the trading day. BullionStar’s LBMA Gold Price and LBMA Silver Price data pages track both the real-time spot price and the LBMA benchmark, published with a day’s delay.

LBMA vs Other Bullion Markets

London is one of three major hubs for global gold and silver trading, alongside New York’s COMEX and the Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE), but the three markets work quite differently, and an LBMA vs COMEX comparison is a common source of confusion for newer investors trying to understand why gold prices sometimes move differently across them.

London (LBMA)

London is an OTC market with no central exchange: bullion banks and other LBMA members trade bilaterally with each other, and the majority of trading is in unallocated gold and silver, meaning book entries rather than metal actually changing hands. Physical gold and silver traded in London is typically held in a small number of secure LBMA vault facilities within the city, operated by the clearing banks behind London Precious Metals Clearing (currently HSBC, JPMorgan, UBS, ICBC Standard Bank, and Citi), alongside the Bank of England’s own vault, which holds gold for the UK and other central banks. Because settlement is ‘loco London,’ bullion market shorthand for gold priced and delivered in London, gold traded in this market is only deliverable within London itself.

New York (COMEX)

COMEX, operated by CME Group, is a futures exchange, where the large majority of contracts traded are financial positions rather than claims on physical metal, and are settled in cash or, less commonly, physical delivery at expiry. COMEX prices can and do diverge from London prices, particularly around large delivery months, though the two markets are closely aligned under normal conditions.

Shanghai (SGE)

The Shanghai Gold Exchange is a government-backed physical spot exchange, where every contract is backed by allocated gold held in SGE-approved vaults within mainland China, and settlement happens in Chinese yuan. Unlike London or COMEX, gold must physically enter the SGE vaulting system before it can be traded, a structure designed partly to encourage gold to flow into China rather than out of it.

Together, London, New York, and Shanghai anchor the global gold market across time zones, with the LBMA’s loco London market forming the largest and most established of the three, and the reference point most other prices, including COMEX futures, are ultimately built around.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is LBMA?

The LBMA (London Bullion Market Association) is the international trade association representing the banks, brokers, and refiners active in the London gold and silver markets. It sets refiner standards through its Good Delivery List and owns the LBMA Gold Price and LBMA Silver Price benchmarks, but it is not itself an exchange or a regulator.

How does the LBMA fix work?

The historic London Gold Fixing and Silver Fixing, informal phone-based auctions dating back to 1919 and 1897 respectively, were replaced in 2014 and 2015 by electronic auctions administered by ICE Benchmark Administration (IBA). Participating banks submit buy and sell orders through an electronic platform, and an algorithm adjusts the price until supply and demand are broadly matched, producing the LBMA Gold Price and LBMA Silver Price. The term “LBMA fix” is still used informally today, even though the original fixing process no longer exists.

Does the LBMA set the gold price?

Not directly. The LBMA owns the intellectual property behind the LBMA Gold Price and LBMA Silver Price benchmarks, but the auctions that actually set those prices each day are run independently by ICE Benchmark Administration (IBA). The LBMA Gold Price is also distinct from the live spot price of gold, which moves continuously throughout the day as dealers and banks trade.

Is the LBMA legitimate?

Yes. The LBMA is a long-established, formally incorporated trade association, founded in 1987, whose Good Delivery List accreditation is recognised as the global benchmark for refiner quality, and whose price benchmarks are used throughout the financial industry. That said, as a trade association run by and for its bullion bank members, it has faced ongoing criticism over how little data it discloses about trading volumes and vault holdings in the London market.

Who regulates the LBMA?

The LBMA itself is not a financial regulator and isn’t directly regulated as an exchange, since it isn’t one. Its members, however, are regulated financial institutions, and the LBMA Gold Price and LBMA Silver Price benchmarks are regulated under the UK Benchmarks Regulation, with ICE Benchmark Administration authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) as their administrator.

What’s the history of the LBMA?

The LBMA was incorporated in December 1987 at the instigation of the Bank of England, formalising a market that had operated informally for centuries beforehand. Its six founding members were London bullion banks active in the market at the time. Since then, it has taken over responsibility for the Good Delivery List, absorbed the roles of the historic London Gold and Silver Fixings, and in 2016 merged with the London Platinum and Palladium Market (LPPM) to extend its remit across all four precious metals.

What’s the difference between the LBMA and the World Gold Council?

The two are often confused, but they serve different functions. The LBMA is a trade association for the wholesale bullion market: its members are the banks, brokers, and refiners who actually trade and process gold and silver in London, and its role is largely one of standards and market infrastructure. The World Gold Council, by contrast, is funded by gold mining companies and focuses on market research, industry promotion, and gold demand, rather than accrediting refiners or running price benchmarks.

Can I buy gold directly from the LBMA?

No. The LBMA is a trade association, not a retailer, and does not sell gold or silver to individual investors. Its members, mostly investment banks and bullion dealers, trade with each other on a wholesale basis. Investors looking to buy physical gold or silver should use a specialist bullion dealer instead.

What the LBMA Means for Bullion Buyers

The LBMA is not an exchange, a regulator, or a source you can buy gold from directly. Its role is to set the standards and infrastructure that much of the global bullion trade relies on. Its Good Delivery List remains the most widely recognised quality benchmark for gold and silver bars, and its Gold Price and Silver Price auctions are still the reference point used across contracts, ETFs, and institutional trades worldwide.

That influence hasn’t come with a great deal of transparency about the market it oversees, from trading volumes to vault holdings, and at its core it remains an association run by and for the large bullion banks that dominate it. For everyday bullion buyers, the practical takeaway is simpler: a gold bar or silver bar produced by an LBMA-accredited refiner, like those sold by BullionStar, carries a level of assurance around authenticity, quality, and resale liquidity that’s recognised anywhere in the world.