Loading ...Basel III doesn’t require banks to hold gold. It just means if they decide to, it’s regarded as a tier 1 asset for liquidity purposes, same as cash.
Much more significant was China allowing insurance companies to hold 1% of their assets as gold. Now, whilst ‘allowing’ doesn’t carry the same weight as ‘recommended’ (i.e. buy 1% gold right now) I’m sure that executives of the ten companies selected for the pilot scheme will suffer a drop in their social credit rating unless they cheerfully participate.