ICE Benchmark Administration To Operate LBMA Silver Price Auction From 25 September

Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE:ICE), a leading operator of global exchanges and clearing houses and provider of data and listings services, today announced that ICE Benchmark Administration (IBA) expects to begin administering the benchmark and operating the Auction underlying the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) Silver Price from 25 September 2017, subject to regulatory approval.

ICE Futures U.S. plans to introduce the Silver Daily Futures contract on 5 September 2017 to facilitate central clearing for the LBMA Silver Price Auction upon launch. The contract offers physical delivery of unallocated loco London silver. 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 .

In March 2015, 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. IBA runs daily surveillance on the auction activity and also runs a quarterly Oversight Committee with broad representation from the market. The auction runs on ICE’s trading platform, which provides straight through processing (STP) for many firms and a full audit trail for compliance departments.