In 2023, three key programs gained traction and achieved significant milestones: Gold Bar Integrity, Sustainability, and Gold as a High-Quality Liquid Asset (HQLA). Regarding the Gold Bar Integrity digital ecosystem, LBMA issued a Request for Proposal and expects to make a decision in principle before the end of the year. This tender is the first significant step in digitizing the Responsible Gold Guidance, a critical step that promises significant returns in terms of both value and integrity for the worldwide industry.
Our ambitious three-year Sustainability and Responsible Sourcing Strategy was announced at LBMA. Our commitment to completing the greatest possible oversight of Responsible Sourcing audits, as well as controlling our own sustainability, is key to this plan. We also encourage all actors in the value chain to collaborate in order to make the promises made in the Lisbon Declaration of Responsibility and Sustainability Principles a reality.
We cannot achieve until all actors, from rock to ring, participate. We have experienced and will continue to face numerous obstacles in this space this year. I’m excited to get started on these challenges with all of you at the Sustainability Summit in March. In terms of Financial Market Enhancements, our continued campaign to have gold categorized as a High-Quality Liquid Asset (HQLA) has been aided by our London Market Review.
Throughout this evaluation, we have assembled a coalition of willing market participants to develop an action plan to fix any gaps in transparency. The LBMA Trade Data has been reported for five years, and this essential dataset is instrumental in displaying the liquidity of gold, and our work has emphasized the benefits this classification would provide to financial market participants as well as the actual economy!