This week the London Metal Exchange (LME) extended the deadline for mandatory digital registration for quality assurance documents.
LME will begin to require Certificates of Analysis (COA) in order to provide transparency regarding the size, shape, purity, and characteristics of a metal unit. The COA is mandatory for almost all physically settled contracts that pass through the exchange.
The Exchange made producers aware of the new requirement, which would make mandatory an enhanced eCOA that would be uploaded to its passport platform, in a previous communication. The requirement would apply to aluminium and every other metal traded on the exchange save for copper, and it would go into effect on January 1, 2024.
This week the LME pushed back the deadline ten months to October 1, 2024, for aluminium and no earlier than October 2025 for everything else but copper. The Exchange said the delay is due to the significant amount of work necessary to make the transition to eCOAs.
The move to an eCOA system is part of the LME’s wider push to create a central registry of digital credentials which it hopes will make it easier to trace the origins of the metals traded on the platform and encourage sustainable business practices.
