World Gold Council Releases Major Announcement: Will Build Digital Gold Shared Infrastructure—“Gold-as-a-Service” Platform

London, March 19, 2026 — The World Gold Council today announced a groundbreaking initiative to build a new shared infrastructure for the digital gold market, aiming to usher in a new era for the development of digital gold. 

At the same time, the World Gold Council, in collaboration with Boston Consulting Group (BCG), has co-authored and released the white paper "Digital Gold: The Case for a Shared Infrastructure," introducing the concept of "Gold as a Service"—a new platform designed to support the scalable and interoperable issuance and operation of digital gold products.

"Gold as a Service" will serve as an open platform, connecting physical gold custody with the digital issuance management systems of gold-backed products. By standardizing core market processes such as custody coordination, reconciliation and settlement, compliance review, and redemption exchange, this model aims to reduce operational complexity, improve the accessibility of gold, and enhance the consistency among different digital gold products.

Addressing Structural Obstacles to Digital Gold

The white paper points out that gold has already undergone a profound digital transformation: trading, settlement, and record-keeping have largely been digitized, and digital gold products are increasingly diverse. However, the scale of digital gold's development remains restricted, mainly due to structural constraints. The issuance and operation of digital gold products remain complex and lack standardization, while lower tradability makes it difficult to effectively integrate with the modern financial system.

"Gold as a Service" is a solution designed to address these challenges. This model is based on the physical properties of gold and aims to modernize its integration into the digital financial ecosystem, while retaining the core attributes that have long supported its role and value.

Main Features of the "Gold as a Service" Platform:

● Seamless product issuance and management: By providing standardized infrastructure and operational models, the creation, issuance, and ongoing management of digital gold products is simplified, reducing operational complexity.

● Enhanced trading convenience: Through standardized processes, the tradability of digital gold is increased, allowing it to function as a single asset within the ecosystem with consistent value attributes and legal rights.

● Embedded trust and verification: Continuous reconciliation, audit, and verification mechanisms are integrated within the shared infrastructure, providing unified proof of physical gold backing, clear ownership definitions, and a redemption framework, thus strengthening market confidence in digital gold.

● Interoperable design: Supports smoother integration of digital gold products into existing financial market infrastructure and emerging digital networks, increasing their liquidity across platforms, venues, and applications.

● Broader applications: As tradability and liquidity increase, digital gold is expected to go beyond traditional diversification and store-of-value functions, transforming into deployable capital and giving rise to new use cases such as gold-backed lending.

David Tait, CEO of the World Gold Council, stated:

"The financial services industry is undergoing rapid and extensive digital transformation, and gold must keep pace to maintain its place in the global financial system. The 'Gold as a Service' platform is the latest initiative in the World Gold Council's digital gold innovation program, aiming to reinforce trust, transparency, and market efficiency. Building shared infrastructure will make gold more accessible, easier to trade, and fully integrated into the modern financial system, ensuring this asset continues to retain its significant value in the future."

Matthias Tauber, Managing Director and Senior Partner at Boston Consulting Group, stated:

"The focal point of the digitalization of gold has shifted from 'whether to digitalize' to 'how to connect with the modern financial system without compromising the integrity of the physical asset.' We will work hand in hand with the World Gold Council to explore how to build a trustworthy, scalable digital gold network."

Editor: Zhu Henan