The Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau announced on 7 July 2026 that Hong Kong’s central clearing and settlement system for gold had begun trial operation, with the first batch of gold deposited into the designated vault and the first settlement activity completed the same day. The system is governed by the Hong Kong Precious Metals Central Clearing Company Limited (HKPMCC), a wholly government-owned entity whose board comprises the Government, the Shanghai Gold Exchange, regulators and 11 banks, with Bank of China (Hong Kong) Limited appointed settlement institution and designated vault. Eight further measures were announced alongside it.
| Element | Detail |
|---|---|
| Clearing Rulebook | Defines the rights, obligations, rules and procedures of participating banks and designated vaults |
| Central ledger | Records settlement activity, gold transfers and balances of participating banks, and interfaces with the designated vault for physical deposits and withdrawals |
| Eligible metal | Approximately 400 fine troy ounce bars meeting international standards, held and settled on an unallocated basis, with commingled holding |
| Delivery Connect, initial phase | HKPMCC has applied for international membership of the Shanghai Gold Exchange and opened a physical gold account; ICBC (Asia), HSBC and Bank of China (Hong Kong) completed two-way transfers on 7 July 2026 |
| Storage and insurance | Airport Authority Hong Kong is developing vaulting facilities on a thousand-tonne scale against a target of over 2,000 tonnes of Hong Kong capacity within three years; the Insurance Authority opens a specie insurance hotline within July 2026 |
Eligible metal for settlement is one format, approximately 400 fine troy ounce bars meeting international standards, so 1 kg and sub-kilo bars have no route into the HKPMCC ledger at all. Entry runs through a participating bank: the ledger records the balances of participating banks rather than the holdings of their clients, and physical deposits and withdrawals pass through the designated vault at Bank of China (Hong Kong). Metal deposited there is commingled, and bars drawn back out meet the same international standards without being the bars that went in. Moving bullion that is allocated by serial and named to its holder in the vault register into that system therefore replaces a serial-level record with a ledger balance, and the weight list that supported the first no longer describes the second. Delivery Connect runs between the HKPMCC designated vault and the designated vault of the Shanghai Gold Exchange International Board in Hong Kong, so the two-way transfer it opens is between two Hong Kong locations and moves no metal across a border. The Airport Authority project and the 2,000-tonne target apply to Hong Kong storage capacity on any basis, allocated or otherwise, and the Insurance Authority hotline from July 2026 is a route to insurers writing specie cover on high-value precious metals held in the territory. Three of the eight accompanying measures touch physical metal — Delivery Connect, the storage and refining expansion, and the insurance arrangements; the HAU ticker, the gold exchange-traded funds and futures measures, the fund and family-office tax bill and the Mandatory Provident Fund change concern instruments and fiscal treatment.
The system is in trial operation, and the HKPMCC states it will identify areas for enhancement before official commissioning, including connectivity with the Real Time Gross Settlement system to enable Delivery versus Payment settlement. The tax concession for gold trading and settlement is at exploration stage, the Mandatory Provident Fund bill is due in the fourth quarter of 2026, and the HAU ticker launched with Bloomberg carries indicative bid and offer prices contributed by market participants.