Southeast Asia is quietly assembling the plumbing for a regional bullion-banking system. The most visible catalyst is Laos, which in late 2024 chartered Lao Bullion Bank (LBB) to formalize gold custody, trading, and payments and to position the country as a regional gold hub by 2030. The initiative sits at the intersection of three forces: record central-bank gold purchases, rising local investment demand, and the push to “onshore” precious-metals finance across Asia.
What a “bullion bank” actually does
In wholesale markets, bullion banks provide precious-metals accounts (allocated and unallocated), financing, custody, market-making, and clearing—roles historically centered on London and a handful of LBMA market-maker banks. London Precious Metals Clearing Limited (LPMCL) is owned and run by HSBC, ICBC Standard, J.P. Morgan and UBS to settle OTC bullion. The LBMA’s own handbook distinguishes between allocated (title to specific bars) and unallocated (credit exposure to the bank) accounts.
Laos: From producer to platform
Lao authorities created Lao Bullion Bank to “serve as a national gold reserve hub,” standardize the industry, and attract regional flow. LBB has rolled out licensed electronic gold trading via the LBB Plus app, and the firm recently linked payments with state lender BCEL, to enable retail users to buy/sell gold from their bank accounts. The strategy aligns with Laos’ stated goal to become an Asian gold trading hub by 2030, leveraging domestic production and using bullion to strengthen the kip’s credibility.
Indonesia: A regulatory blueprint
In parallel, Indonesia launched its first bullion banks in February 2025 (Pegadaian and Bank Syariah Indonesia), after Indonesia’s financial services authority (OJK) issued a dedicated rulebook in late 2024. The objectives: keep gold stocks onshore, deepen collateralized finance in metal, and reduce FX leakage along the supply chain. Analysts note both the opportunity and execution risks as institutions scale up operations. Indonesian legal and policy commentary highlights minimum capital and transactional standards for bullion-bank operations—codifying how deposit, lending, trading, and custody in gold will work under prudential supervision.
Singapore: Building the regional price-discovery stack
While not branding institutions as “bullion banks,” Singapore is upgrading market infrastructure. In June 2025, Abaxx Exchange launched physically deliverable Gold Singapore Futures (1-kg)—the city-state’s first deliverable gold contract—backed by investors including CBOE and BlackRock. Active trading and subsequent corporate updates confirm the product’s launch and deliveries, adding an Asian delivery point outside Shanghai and the traditional London/NY axis.
This complements the Singapore Bullion Market Association’s (SBMA) broader ecosystem and underscores the region’s intent to shift more price discovery and settlement eastward.
Thailand & Malaysia: Demand, imports, and listed products
Thailand remains one of Asia’s most active retail markets. 2025 data show imports over 200 tonnes in the first nine months and double-digit growth in consumer demand despite price strength—evidence of regional depth that bullion banks can intermediate.
Malaysia offers listed exposure via Bursa Malaysia’s FGLD (USD-denominated, RM-settled, 100-gram contract), which has seen renewed interest as prices set records. Instruments like this—while not banks—are part of the same regionalization arc that bullion banking rides.
Why now: the official-sector bid and the “eastward” flow
The timing is not accidental. Central-bank buying has exceeded 1,000 tonnes annually for three consecutive years (2022–2024) and remained elevated in 2025, reshaping bullion flows and inventories.
LBMA’s own data and Reuters reporting this year also chronicled logistics shifts—large outflows from London to COMEX inventories after tariff headlines in late 2024 and subsequent normalization—highlighting how storage, clearing, and borrowing dynamics adapt to macro shocks.
What it means for ASEAN finance
- Onshoring reserves & FX buffers. Bullion banks let jurisdictions hold, mobilize, and finance gold domestically, potentially reducing hard-currency leakage while broadening collateral types in local banking systems. That is explicit in Laos’ and Indonesia’s policy narratives. (Xinhua News)
- Deeper local capital markets. Deliverable futures in Singapore and exchange-listed contracts in Malaysia grow the toolkit for hedgers and savers, encouraging localized price discovery and inventory financing.
- Regulatory uplift. As ASEAN systems scale bullion banking, LBMA integrity standards and databases (e.g., the 2025 gold-bar integrity platform) offer traceability and risk controls that regulators can reference.
- Execution risks. Rapid rollout carries operational and compliance challenges (Indonesia is a case in point), and history shows governance issues can surface anywhere—LBMA’s incident review opened in 2024 for Indonesia’s Antam illustrates the need for rigorous oversight.
Bottom line
ASEAN’s bullion-bank build-out is less a de-novo invention than a regional re-wiring of a mature market: move custody, credit, and clearing closer to where demand and production already reside. With Laos and Indonesia setting templates, Singapore supplying deliverable futures, and Thailand/Malaysia contributing depth and listed access, the region is laying the groundwork for Asia-centric bullion intermediation—at a time when official-sector buying and investor flows make gold a more strategic financial asset than at any point in decades.
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