SDiX launches commodity exchange for physically settled diamonds

The Singapore Diamond Investment Exchange (SDiX) announced that trading has started on the world’s first and only commodity exchange for physically settled diamonds. The SDiX platform aims to standardize global trading in diamonds as an asset class and to unlock new investment opportunities for global investors.

The platform is designed to enable accredited investors to trade diamonds as an asset class for the first time by providing an independent, electronic, and regulation-ready global market that creates a transparent price discovery mechanism for diamonds. As a result, banks, financial firms and investors will for the first time have a benchmark price to value diamonds as an asset.

Alain Vandenborre, Executive Chairman and Founder of the Singapore Diamond Investment Exchange, commented: “The SDiX represents a tectonic shift in how diamonds are traded. By providing the first ever transparent and open price discovery mechanism for diamonds, the exchange unlocks a major opportunity for investors to trade diamonds as an asset class. The SDiX is by design entirely independent of the diamond industry, and fully regulation-ready, so that investors, suppliers and other industry players can benefit from a transparent and unbiased marketplace.”

The Singapore Diamond Investment Exchange is built on a fully integrated, regulation-ready ecosystem, including an industry-leading electronic trading platform, a depository that enables the physical settlement of diamonds, and a global network of service providers that support the Exchange and its members with grading, vaulting and settlement. These include some of the leaders in the global diamond trading industry: GIA, the renowned diamond grading institute; leading vaulting and logistics provider Malca-Amit; and Standard Chartered Bank, which will provide banking services and facilitate the cash settlement of transactions.

SDiX launches with broker members across Singapore, Hong Kong, London and Dubai. In the near term, the Exchange aims to support a vibrant spot trading market, and as this matures the Exchange will offer more sophisticated products such as ETFs and derivatives that will further enhance the attractiveness of the platform for global investors.