The Royal Mint has renamed its gold exchange-traded commodity (ETC) following steps to improve its exposure to responsibly sourced metal.
The Royal Mint Gold ETC has been renamed The Royal Mint Responsible Sourced Physical Gold ETC (RMAU) after the strategy became the world’s first ETC to be backed by recycled gold.
The Royal Mint announced its first tranche of 50,000 ounces of surplus gold that has been refined into London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) good delivery bars, with much of this coming from ‘swarf’, the gold dust discarded while engraving commemorative coins.
It also received $170m in seed funding from Quintet Private Bank for its project to extract gold from used smartphones and laptops.
RMAU is already 100% backed by LBMA good delivery bars and over time its reserves of recycled gold will increase based on future demand, The Royal Mint said.
The firm also decided to halt sourcing Russian gold for RMAU and retroactively switched all 60 existing Russian bars out of the ETC in March.
Andrew Dickey, director of precious metals at The Royal Mint, commented: “We are taking action to reduce our use of mined materials through a number of initiatives including our responsibly sourced ETC.
“We are delighted that our ETC will reflect this with the name change and we hope that investors with a keen eye on sustainability will find this an attractive option.”
Hector McNeil, co-founder and co-CEO of HANetf, which white-labels the ETC, added: “Not only are gold bars of RMAU 100% in compliance with the LBMA’s 2019 Responsible Sourcing guidelines but a portion of the gold custodied is recycled.
“This reflects the Royal Mint’s strong commitment to ESG. We believe the ETC should also have a name that reflects this.”
The Royal Mint’s green push follows its decision to only offer physical delivery of gold to its own ETC, cancelling physical delivery to the legacy Gold Bullion Securities (GBS) now owned by WisdomTree.
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