By ABAH SUNDAY, Abuja
The Executive Vice-Chairman of Kian Smith Refinery, a subsidiary of Kian Smith Group, Nere Emiko, has urged African countries to adopt integrated market solution for gold to unlock the economic potentials of her rich endowment in gold reserves.
Emike who was advancing the new market strategy during her presentation at the ongoing 3-day second edition of the African Natural Resource and Energy Investment Summit, AFNIS, themed: “Towards a Just Transition” in Abuja, sees Africa, with virtually all the countries either producing or trading in gold, ruling the world in gold.
She said,”What is needed is an integrated 21st century marketplace solution for gold; from mines to market, supply meeting demand, transcending borders and currencies
“The gold market is inherently global and gold is traded continuously throughout all time zones.
“However, there are some important distinctions across geographies such as trade restrictions, taxes on gold and differing bar standards such that a single integrated trading market does not exist.
“We believe with the emergence of digital tokenisation of gold, cross border payment solutions and global acceptance of responsible sourcing programmes, we are on the way towards seeing the emergence of a single integrated gold trading platform.
“It is not uncommon for developing nations with quantifiable gold reserves and significant mining activities to lack integration and structure in its gold value chain to support its jewellery and financial ecosystem.”
She harped on the need to take advantage of the solutions provided by blockchain for real time transactions as there is a growing demand globally for a digital asset that provides exposure to gold and silver which has in turn prompted geopolitical need for an alternative financial system to transact with.
The advantages, as outlined by her, includes: Simplified payment & usability; bridge between fiat and cryptocurrency; public audit of holdings; traceability and chain of custody (from mines to market); as well as provenance and ownership (for vaulting & bullion banking).
She lamented that “despite more than 70% of African countries having significant gold mining sectors, neither the people nor their governments can access precious metals” due to certain challenges.
According to her Kian Smith has come up with solution in SANU – a composite digital representation of gold & silver made up of the combination of SANU Gold (Sanu GLD) and SANU Silver (SANU SLV) respectively.
“Clients can therefore own physical gold or silver in secure vaults with the convenience of viewing their holdings online. SANU is built on one of the world’s leading blockchains. It’s issued by Kian Smith Company.
“This guarantees a secure physical audit trail and transferability across clients on the application. All transactions operate according to the regulations of the audited smart contract,” Emiko explained.
Kian Smith is the first Gold Refinery in Nigeria.