Regulators get tough on silver trading floors

The State Bank of Viet Nam has asked the Prime Minister to restrict silver trading floors and shut down any offering escrow trading.

The central bank has also suggested that the Ministry of Planning and Investment and municipal People’s Committees work together to review the operating licences of trading floors and penalise any violators of the terms of licences or regulations.

Some silver investors at trading floors have been leveraged up to 93 per cent in order to make large transactions.

“Such highly leveraged operations are highly risky,” commented senior economist Vo Tri Thanh.

Silver trading floors emerged on the market after 20 gold trading floors were shut down by regulators last March.

“Silver trading floors are also taking advantage of the law to operate,” said the treasurer of a HCM City-based bank which had previously operated a gold trading floor, on condition of anonymity. “While changes in the law are pending, floor operators are still able to profit.”

Senior economist Le Dang Doanh said that the appearance of silver trading floors indicated a real demand by investors once the gold floors were closed. The issue was how to build a suitable legal framework to keep the floors on the right track, he said.

Doanh also noted that setting proper regulations was not so difficult because the models of many commodities trading floors have been applied in many countries and Viet Nam should be able to learn from them. — VNS

Tags: silver trading floors

Posted by VBN on Aug 11 2010. Filed under Gold. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry