ICE Benchmark Administration expects to begin administering the benchmark and operating the auction underlying the London Bullion Market Association Silver Price from September 25, subject to regulatory approval, parent company Intercontinental Exchange said Tuesday.
The company announced in July that it had been selected as the new administrator for the LBMA Silver Price, replacing a joint effort by CME Group and Thomson Reuters which stepped down in March, less than three years after taking over.
IBA is the current operator of the London Gold Price benchmark, which replaced the century-old gold "fix" in 2015, shortly after the CME and Thomson Reuters took over the silver "fix" in 2014.
IBA "successfully transitioned the former London Gold Fix from a conference call based methodology to the independently administered, transparent and electronic auction process that now underlies the LBMA Gold Price," ICE said Tuesday.
Last month, ICE announced plans to launch a new London Silver Daily Futures contract on September 5, pending regulatory review, via its subsidiary ICE Futures US.
The new contract, which offers physical delivery of unallocated loco London silver, will "facilitate central clearing for the LBMA Silver Price Auction upon launch," ICE said Tuesday.
"IBA issued a formal consultation paper on changes proposed as part of the benchmark transition and received no comments on the proposal set out by IBA," it added.
Also in July 10, the LME launched spot, daily and monthly futures contracts for gold and silver via its LMEprecious arm and detailed plans to publish intraday reference prices for the new contracts.
In the first four weeks of trade on LMEprecious, over 132,000 lots were traded, corresponding to 77.4 million oz (2,408 mt) of silver and 11.7 million oz (364 mt) of gold, according to figures from the exchange.
