OCBC to offer physical gold trading services for institutional, BOS private banking clients from Jun 10

[SINGAPORE] From Wednesday (Jun 10), OCBC will offer its institutional clients and high-net-worth customers of its private banking arm Bank of Singapore (BOS) physical gold trading services, the bank announced on Monday.

Eligible clients will be able to buy, sell and custodise the precious metal through OCBC and store their holdings in a Singapore-based vault.

The move comes as OCBC strengthens its precious metals offerings amid rising global demand for physical gold and growing client preference for transacting and holding bullion locally.

Two sizes of gold bars – large bars of about 400 troy ounces, which are 12.4 kg each and kilobars each weighing 1 kg – will be made available.

The bars will be allocated to individual clients and identifiable through serial numbers, allowing investors to own specific bars rather than gain exposure through pooled reserves under an unallocated gold structure.

The new capability also enables BOS clients – who previously transacted in physical gold through a US-based entity – to do so through OCBC.

The physical gold offering forms part of the bank’s broader push to strengthen its group-wide gold proposition under its “Next Frontier” corporate strategy, which seeks to deepen its whole-of-wealth offering across banking, wealth management and insurance.

This comes as clients have increasingly expressed interest in storing bullion locally and transacting through Singapore-based entities amid heightened geopolitical tensions and macroeconomic uncertainty, OCBC said.

The lender cited data from the World Gold Council showing that global demand for gold bars rose 50 per cent year on year in Q1 2026.

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Reflecting this trend, physical gold holdings among BOS clients have grown more than 40 per cent since end-2025, with the majority of holdings belonging to ultra-high-net-worth clients.

Kenneth Lai, head of global markets at OCBC, said the bank will continue exploring opportunities to extend physical gold and other gold-linked investment and hedging solutions to additional customer segments over time.

Current services

Beyond physical bullion, OCBC has expanded its broader gold investment ecosystem across the group.

Besides fractional gold and silver investments available through the OCBC app, Lion Global Investors launched the LionGlobal Singapore Physical Gold Fund last year, which is Singapore’s first physical gold-backed fund that is insured and vaulted locally.

Building on this, the LionGlobal Singapore Physical Gold ETF – Singapore’s first home-grown physical gold exchange-traded fund – debuted on the Singapore Exchange in March this year.

More recently, in April, the OCBC-LionGlobal Physical Gold Fund Token was also launched for institutional investors – including banks, hedge funds and asset managers – as well as corporate accredited investors. 

The bank said the product is South-east Asia’s first tokenised physical gold fund available on a public blockchain.

Clients may also gain exposure to physical gold through investment-linked policies offered by Great Eastern through the GreatLink Singapore Physical Gold Fund, which invests directly in the LionGlobal Singapore Physical Gold Fund.

Jason Moo, CEO of BOS, said that amid market volatility and geopolitical uncertainty, clients are becoming more deliberate about who they transact with and where their gold is stored.

“By leveraging OCBC Group’s strengths, we will be able to deliver a secure, trusted and differentiated physical gold offering that addresses our clients’ risk concerns,” he added.