The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) discontinued its agency service for individuals trading precious metals on the Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE) after end-of-day clearing on July 24, 2026.
The bank published a notice about this on June 24, 2026, on its official website. The list of instruments for which service has been discontinued includes both margin products and those related to physical metal. Among them are Au(T+D), mAu(T+D), and the silver Ag(T+D), as well as the physical products Au99.99, Au100g, and PGC30g, according to SGE's own classification. T+D products involve deferred delivery, where a participant can close a position, submit a delivery request, or roll it over to the next period.
This refers to the discontinuation of a specific agency service by ICBC, not the closure of the Shanghai Gold Exchange or a general ban on precious metals transactions in the country.
In the notice, the bank advised clients with existing positions to sell or close them in a timely manner, or to take physical delivery of the metal, and to withdraw any remaining funds from their margin accounts. ICBC stated that after end-of-day clearing on July 24, 2026, it would subsequently terminate trading permissions in its mobile and internet banking platforms, as well as at its branches. The bank said that terminating these permissions would restrict position closures, sales, and collection of the metal. A specific date for this subsequent shutdown was not mentioned in the notice.
Hong Kong: Separate Infrastructure Developments
A separate set of announcements concerns the precious metals infrastructure in Hong Kong. Back on December 22, 2025, the city's government announced the completion of the first phase of the airport depository expansion, with its capacity reaching 200 tonnes, according to an official statement.
Later, on May 27, 2026, Hong Kong authorities outlined a goal to increase the city's total storage capacity to over 2,000 tonnes within a three-year period, as stated in a written government response. These figures describe two different metrics: the actual capacity of a single facility and the planned aggregate capacity of the entire city's infrastructure.
Additionally, on July 7, 2026, a trial run of a centralized gold clearing and settlement system was launched in Hong Kong, according to a government announcement. The announcement referred to a trial operation phase before the system's official launch. The cited announcements do not establish a direct link between the discontinuation of ICBC's agency service and Hong Kong's infrastructure developments.
The discontinuation of a service by one intermediary bank is not equivalent to the closure of the exchange. Planned storage capacity is not the same as the actual volume of metal in storage. And a trial launch of a new system is a stage of development, not its completion. The closure of one access channel to the market does not eliminate the market itself, but it does change the conditions for its participants.