Buyers of gold coins and bars in the UAE - and globally -can now verify whether their purchases are legal and responsibly sourced, a senior industry executive said on Tuesday (November 25).

David Tait, CEO of World Gold Council (WGC), said gold coin and bar holders will find it harder to sell their holdings sourced illicitly outside the database being collected by the Council.

The Gold Bar Integrity (GBI) programme launched by the WGC along with the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA is putting the entire legitimate gold from all accredited and responsible refineries onto an immutable Blockchain-based database where buyers will be able to clearly see that the investment bars, coins and eventually, jewellery that they purchase was sourced responsibly, refined rapidly, and is only passed through the hands of legitimate actors.

Speaking during the Dubai Precious Metal Conference (DPMC) on Tuesday, Tait said:“LBMA has made exceptional progress in this regard, bringing all of their gold refineries onto the system. In addition, all 33 WGC large-scale mining member companies are in the process of adopting the database.

"Together with declaring them refining partners, we'll be uploading all newly-mined productions, going forward, allowing for a transparent miner-refiner handshake, which will enhance investor confidence in the gold supply chain.”

Firstly, bars and coins will be brought under the database. But jewellery, he noted, will be hard to bring under this mechanism because when gold is moulded into jewellery, it is difficult to keep track of it.

“The day will soon come when it will be unthinkable to buy gold without first checking its origin and integrity in the GBI database. This database will be open to all responsibly-sourced gold. My ambition is that this will include responsibly-sourced artisanal gold mining in the future. My goal is that if you are holding gold for nefarious reasons outside of this database, you will find that the available buyers for your gold start to decline, and the market for your gold gradually shrinks. I assure you that we're trying to make that happen,” he told the audience at the conference.

According to WGC data, coins and bar demand fell during the third quarter of 2025 in the UAE - but at a slower pace than jewellery - as people bought coins and bars for investments, expecting prices to rally further.

The UAE is the second largest gold trading centre in the world; therefore, it imports gold from exporting countries on every continent.

Data showed bar and coin demand falling six per cent year-on-year to 3.4 tonnes during the third quarter this year. Meanwhile, quarter-on-quarter sales of coins and bars fell 18 per cent.

Overall, gold demand in the UAE fell 9 per cent year on year to 9.7 tonnes during the July-September 2025 period - the lowest level since the second quarter of 2021 - when demand hit 8.8 tonnes.

On Tuesday, Dr Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi, the UAE's Minister of Foreign Trade, stressed that UAE regulations about precious metals are fully aligned, and in some cases exceed, the guidelines set by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Speaking during the Dubai Precious Metal Conference on Tuesday, he said:“There has been much media discussion about the UAE and gold in recent months. So, I'd like to take this opportunity to be absolutely clear. The UAE regulations of the precious metal sector fully align with, and in many areas exceed, the global guidelines laid down by OECD. In the past five years, we have implemented seven new policies and practices to ensure our gold trade is transparent and entirely consistent with the main with other major gold hubs around the world,” he said during a keynote address.

He added that these policies include responsible sourcing procedures, inspections, annual audits and, where necessary, effective measures to guarantee compliance.

David Tait of WGC stressed that this is an ambitious but necessary goal, because as regulators review tighten and investors rightly become more discerning, there is a need to move the industry towards total trust and transparency to compete for capital against other simpler, transparent and more trusted asset classes.

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