As at end January 2021, there was an all-time record high of 9,602 tonnes of gold, valued at $575.4 billion. There were also 34,346 tonnes of silver, valued at $30.3 billion. This equates to approximately 768,153 gold bars and 1,144,858 silver bars.
The data represents the holdings of seven custodians offering vaulting services (all of which are LBMA members) and the Bank of England. The seven custodians comprise four security carriers (Brinks, G4S Cash Solutions (UK), 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 - January 2021
The volume of ounces transferred in January fell marginally by 0.7% month on month (m/m) to 18.8 mn ounces, with the corresponding value unchanged at $35.1 bn. There were 4,669 transfers in January, 6.8% higher m/m, with the clearers settling on average 4,026 ounces per transfer, 7% lower m/m.
Daily Averages Silver Clearing Data - January 2021
The volume of ounces transferred in January decreased by 2.8% to 258.6 mn ounces, with the corresponding value transferred increasing by 1.1% m/m to $6.7 bn. The number of transfers in January fell by 4% m/m to 1,898, with the clearers settling on average 136,197 ounces per transfer, 1.2% higher m/m.
The average gold / silver price ratio in January was 72.1 (compared to 74.6 in December).
Both the vault data and the clearing statistics are published on the first day of each month (in the event that the first day of the month is a UK Bank Holiday or falls on a weekend, the data will be published on the first business day of the month).