As at end February 2021, there were 9,559 tonnes of gold, valued at $535.6 billion. This equates to approximately 764,741 gold bars.
In a move towards greater transparency the vault holdings for silver, as at end February 2021, were published on the 5th business day of March (and repeated for completeness below).
As at end February 2021, there were 34,996 tonnes of silver, valued at $30 billion. This equates to approximately 1,166,540 silver bars.
The data represents the holdings of six custodians offering vaulting services (all of which are LBMA members) and the Bank of England. The six custodians comprise four security carriers (Brinks, Malca-Amit and Loomis International Ltd) and three clearing banks (HSBC, ICBC Standard Bank and JP Morgan). Also included are the gold holdings held at the Bank of England (not an LBMA member) which offers gold (but not silver) custodial services to central banks and certain commercial firms that facilitate central bank access to the liquidity of the London gold market. Those clearing members without their own vault operations - Scotiabank and UBS - utilise their accounts with one of the LBMA custodians or the Bank of England and therefore do not contribute to the statistics to avoid double accounting.
The historical monthly data series from July 2016, as well as other information on the London physical vault holdings can be found here on LBMA’s website.
Daily Averages Gold Clearing Data - February 2021
The volume of ounces transferred in February was unchanged month on month (m/m) at 18.8 mn ounces, with the corresponding value 2.9% lower at $34.1 bn. There were 4,650 transfers in February broadly in line with the previous month, with the clearers settling on average 4,053 ounces per transfer, 0.7% higher m/m.
Daily Averages Silver Clearing Data - February 2021
The volume of ounces transferred in February increased by 30% to 336.2 mn ounces, with the corresponding value transferred more than 37% higher m/m at $9.2 bn. The number of transfers in February increased by 44% m/m to 2,737, with the clearers settling on average 122,830 ounces per transfer, 9.8% lower m/m.The average gold / silver price ratio in January was 72.1 (compared to 74.6 in December).
The average gold / silver price ratio in February was 66.1, its lowest monthly average since August 2014 (see chart on page 5 of the Press Release).