Silver Fix

The term ‘Silver Fix’, refers to the benchmark used for the trading of silver bars, silver coins,
and other silver assets across the world. For more than a hundred years, major players in
the silver industry would hold a conference every day, at 12 noon GMT, in which they would
agree a price for the trading of silver.

The silver fix is generally only used by major buyers and sellers of silver such as banks
and refiners, while the majority of gold and silver investments are made using the spot price.

London Silver Fix

Historically known as the London Silver Price, the price would be set by ‘London Silver Fixing
Limited’ once a day. Market-makers Deutsche Bank, HSBC, and the Bank of Nova Scotia met
and used the same method used to set the Gold Fix.

Since 2014, however, this process has changed slightly. After Deutsche Bank resigned from
its involvement in the fixing of the silver price, alternative methods were explored, bringing
to an end a system that had been in place for more than a century.

LBMA Silver Price

Responsibility for the silver fix changed hands following the retirement of the previous system
in 2014. The new benchmark is owned by the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA).
The LBMA silver price fix is set by CME Benchmark Europe Ltd and is administered by Thomson
Reuters Benchmark Services Ltd.

The daily setting of a benchmark for the silver price still takes place, but now under the title
‘the LBMA Silver Price’. The new silver fix uses slightly different methods to the London Silver
Price, with the aim of providing greater transparency to investors regarding the valuation of
precious metals.

London Silver Fix time

Rather than being set ‘manually’ by the participating banks, the benchmark is now set via
an electronic auction that begins at 12 noon GMT (7am EST, 5am PST, 7pm CST).

The auction is run in a series of rounds each lasting 30 seconds, in which the price is given
in US Dollars per troy ounce and participants make orders to buy and sell by volume, in
lakhs (100,000 ounces) or quarter lakhs (25,000 ounces).

In similar fashion to the system used to set the London Silver Price, the rounds will be repeated
until an equilibrium is reached between buy and sell volumes. When this is achieved, the
benchmark price has been set.