World Gold Council Plans Shared Platform to expand Digital Gold Access

TLDR

• World Gold Council proposed Gold as a Service for digital gold products.
• The platform would link physical custody, digital issuance, and record syncing.
• Banks and fintechs could launch digital gold without building full systems.
• WGC said fragmented systems now limit scale, trust, and liquidity in digital gold.
• Tokenized gold market reached about $5.5 billion in March 2026, led by XAUT and PAXG.

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The World Gold Council plans to build a shared infrastructure platform for digital gold. The proposal aims to help banks and fintechs offer gold-backed products with less cost and complexity.

The plan is called Gold as a Service. It would connect physical gold custody with digital issuance and management. The World Gold Council said the system could support trusted and compliant digital gold products at scale.

World Gold Council sets out shared platform for digital gold

The World Gold Council, based in London, presented the plan in a whitepaper. Boston Consulting Group co-authored the paper. The proposal focuses on shared infrastructure for firms that want to launch digital gold products.

The group said many firms face technical and operational barriers today. They often need to build custody links, redemption systems, and digital records on their own. The proposed model would reduce that burden and provide a common base.

Under the plan, issuers would focus on customer services and product design. They could manage pricing, branding, and user experience. The shared platform would handle key backend processes.

The World Gold Council said the structure would support trust and efficient operations. It would also support compliance requirements and product management. The goal is to make digital gold easier to launch and maintain.

Three-layer model aims to connect physical gold and digital records

The proposed system has three main layers. The physical layer would cover sourcing, storage, transport, and redemption of gold. This part would manage the real metal behind the digital product.

The digital layer would support issuance and management of digital gold. It would record ownership and product activity. It would also help issuers manage customer holdings and transactions.

A connecting layer would link the two sides. It would keep physical gold positions and digital records in sync. The World Gold Council said this structure is needed for trust and smooth operation.

The whitepaper said digital gold products remain fragmented today. Different systems use different standards for custody, ownership, and redemption. That makes products harder to scale and harder to treat as one market.

The Council said digital gold should work as a fungible asset class. Units should be equivalent across platforms and clearly backed by physical gold. They should also be easy to transfer, trade, or use as collateral.

Proposal comes as tokenized gold market continues to grow

The announcement comes as tokenized gold grows within digital asset markets. Forbes said the market had about $5.5 billion in combined capitalization in March 2026. Tether Gold and Paxos Gold held about 92% of that market.

The World Gold Council said gold remains a trusted store of value. It also noted that global above-ground gold supply is worth more than $30 trillion. Yet the market structure has moved slowly compared with digital finance.

Investors now expect digital access to financial assets. They also expect fractional ownership and real-time transactions. The Council said current digital gold products do not fully meet those expectations.

World Gold Council CEO David Tait said, “Financial services are undergoing a rapid and pervasive digital transformation and gold must also evolve to maintain its role in the global financial system.”

He also said, “Shared infrastructure can help gold become more accessible, more easily traded and fully integrated into modern financial systems — ensuring it remains as relevant tomorrow as it has been for millennia.”

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