World Gold Council unveils best practices to set bar for retail product providers

The World Gold Council (WGC) launched Retail Gold Investment Principles (RGIPs) to set the bar for product providers across the global retail gold market and further encourage retail investors to place their trust in gold.

"The RGIPs will provide high-level, best practice principles for providers of all kinds of retail gold investment products and, through their adoption, ensure the highest levels of fairness, transparency and integrity," WGC said in a statement.

The council said that the adoption of best practices will lead to greater trust, benefiting customers and product providers alike, creating value and driving demand across the industry.

Experts from over fifteen countries spanning all sectors of the retail gold investment market provided valuable feedback on both the structure and terminology of the RGIPs.

The Council published an updated set of investor guidance namely the Retail Gold Investment Investor Guidance to support the retail investor and provide them with knowledge and understanding of gold investment.

The guidance has been expanded to further educate investors on the range of investment models for retail gold products. It also alerts investors to the presence of scams and fraudulent behaviours in the market and how best to identify and guard against them.

David Tait, CEO World Gold Council said: “ We have taken time over the past year to engage with a wide range of industry stakeholders representing different global regions and a diverse range of business models to understand how we can best support the retail gold investment industry."

"Our common objective is simple; make certain that investors, especially those considering gold for the first time, have absolute trust in the products they are offered and the providers with whom they chose to transact," Tait added.