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BIS gold swaps rise as the metal's price falls
9:53p ET Tuesday, June 9, 2026
Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:
As gold prices keep falling, gold swaps arranged by the Bank for International Settlements on behalf of its member central banks keep rising.
Drawing on the bank's monthly statement for May --
https://www.bis.org/banking/balsheet/statofacc260531.pdf
-- which was published today hard upon publication of the bank's statements for March and April, Lambourne calculates that the bank's gold swaps rose another 12 tonnes to 146 tonnes.
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The bank's gold swaps stood at only 56 tonnes in December, making May's swaps total an increase of 260%. The swaps totaled 181 tonnes in March.
The monthly table below shows that BIS gold swap levels change considerably. They indicate active gold trading by the bank's central bank members via the swaps, using the BIS for camouflage.
The last 12 months have seen the volume of swaps recover strongly after a long subdued period. The BIS swaps peaked at an estimated 594 tonnes in November 2017.
The BIS has actually advertised to potential central bank members that its services include surreptitious interventions in the gold and currency markets:
https://www.gata.org/node/11012
According to Lambourne, the gold involved in the BIS swaps is believed to be held by a commercial bullion bank -- probably as a custodian of a gold exchange-traded fund -- and is swapped for dollars via the BIS, probably on behalf of the U.S. Federal Reserve, which can apply the gold in the markets as necessary to influence prices.
The steady decline in BIS gold swaps in recent years may correlate with bullion bank JPMorganChase's having become co-custodian of the gold claimed to be held by the major gold exchange-traded fund, GLD, which may have become another source of metal for U.S. government intervention.
Since ordinary shareholders of GLD cannot redeem their shares for actual metal -- a right restricted to the big bullion bank "authorized participants" associated with the fund -- it may be relatively easy for JPMorganChase and other bullion banks to juggle claims to GLD gold that add up to more metal than the ETF actually owns or thinks it owns, thus perpetuating the gross "rehypothecation" of gold in the market.
Only in its annual report has the BIS explicitly reported its gold swap total. Those reports have always confirmed Lambourne's estimates and the bank has never disputed them.
The BIS long has refused to explain the purpose of its gold swaps or to identify the parties to them, but this has yet to arouse the curiosity of mainstream financial news organizations -- nor, for that matter, the interest of the World Gold Council or major gold mining companies.
Here are the monthly BIS’ gold swap totals since December 2024 as estimated by Lambourne going back to December 2024:
May 2026: 146
Apr 2026: 134
Mar 2026: 181
Feb 2026: 104
Jan 2026: 106
Dec 2025: 56
Nov 2025: 39
Oct 2025: 54
Sep 2025: 54
Aug 2025: 30
Jul 2025: 34
Jun 2025: 34
May 2025: 32
Apr 2025: 5
Mar 2025: 10
Feb 2025: 22
Jan 2025: 16
Dec 2024: 78
CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.
CPowell@GATA.org
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