India's gold demand to be led by institutions and market infrastructure: World Gold Council CEO at Rising Bharat Summit

Gold

• India's gold demand to shift toward institutional investors
• Central banks continue to buy gold amid global debt fears
• Gold-backed ETFs gain popularity among younger Indian investors

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India’s next phase of gold demand is likely to be driven increasingly by institutional investors and financial-market infrastructure rather than households alone, said David Tait, chief executive officer of the World Gold Council, speaking at the Rising Bharat Summit on Friday.

Tait said the current gold rally is being underpinned by structural forces rather than short-term price momentum. “I know you’d expect me to say gold is going up, given my position… but I think there are six or seven main reasons why gold will continue higher,” he said, citing geopolitics, interest rates, central bank buying and what he described as a growing 'fear of runaway global debt'.

He pointed to episodes of stress in US bond markets following policy shocks as evidence that concerns around debt sustainability, rather than inflation alone, are shaping investor behaviour. Tait said only an unlikely surge in US economic growth to 6-7 percent, coupled with moderate inflation, could place public debt on a declining path and alter the outlook for gold.

Tait said India’s future gold demand is likely to be increasingly shaped by pension funds, insurance companies and other large pools of institutional capital embedding gold within portfolios. He added that younger investors are also gravitating towards financial forms of gold ownership, particularly gold-backed exchange-traded funds, alongside traditional jewellery.

Central bank buying, he said, remains a critical support for the market. Tait said most developing-economy central banks are continuing to accumulate gold, both as a portfolio diversifier and as protection against currency volatility and geopolitical risk, with little evidence of selling despite sharp price gains.

He said the World Gold Council has focused on reducing the frictions that historically limited gold’s role in mainstream portfolios. “We have spent a lot of work trying to make gold less capital intensive, easier to hold, more divisible, more trusted and more transparent,” he said, adding that institutional acceptance of gold is still at an early stage in large markets such as India, China and Japan.

Tait also flagged regulatory recognition as a potential inflection point for gold’s role in the financial system, noting that its exclusion from high-quality liquid asset classification has constrained institutional usage. On digital gold, he distinguished between tokenisation and broader digitalisation efforts, outlining plans for a new digital allocated gold market that would allow fractional legal ownership of physical gold and improve its usability as collateral.

For Indian investors, Tait said modern investment routes are likely to coexist with traditional demand rather than replace it, adding that gold-backed ETFs currently offer the most practical pathway within the country’s regulatory framework.