(Updated to include background on banks that may participate in the yuan-denominated fixing)

London 25/02/2016 – China plans to launch its new yuan-denominated gold pricing fix on April 19 this year, sources familiar with the matter said on Thursday.

The launch date has been officially settled and draft trading rules have been sent out to those banks that will be involved in the Shanghai fixing, FastMarkets understands.

The banks that will participate in the planned launch are predominently Chinese but FastMarkets understands that foreign banks could also be involved, according to sources.

It is likely that the 10 banks that are official market makers in the system set up by the SGE in January to facilitate interbank gold trading will participate in the yuan-denominated fixing, one source said.

Most Chinese banks in the list of ‘official’ market makers probably will be involved in the fix, the source noted, alongside one foreign bank.

The 10 ‘official’ market makers are ICBC, Agricultural Bank of China, Bank of China, China Construction Bank, Bank of Communications, China CITIC Bank, China Merchants Bank, Industrial Bank Co, Bank of Ningbo and ANZ (China).

The SGE is looking to bring more foreign banks on broad, a well-informed source said.

The new benchmark will be run through the state-owned Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE), the world’s largest physical gold exchange.

The SGE declined to comment.

(Editing by Mark Shaw)