Trading is conducted amongst members of the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA), tightly overseen by the Bank of England.
The physical characteristics of gold and silver bars used in settlement in market is described by the Good Delivery specification which is a set of rules issued by the LBMA.
[citation needed] The bulk of global trading in gold and silver is conducted on the over-the-counter (OTC) market.
Gold is also traded in forms of securities, such as exchange-traded funds (ETFs), on the London, New York, Johannesburg, and Australian stock exchanges.
Although the physical market for gold and silver is distributed globally, most wholesale OTC trades are cleared through London.
Similarly to a bank run this makes LBMA unallocated gold accounts susceptible to loss if a sufficient number of market participants request delivery of physical bullion.
[citation needed] LBMA accepts memberships from companies that deal with business closely related to gold or silver bullion in the London market.
[7] LBMA members come from Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, Poland, Russian Federation, South Africa, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United States, and Uzbekistan.
VTB, a Russian-based bank, joined in 2015 as the first full member from Russia and was able to begin expanding into Asian emerging markets as a result.