Perth software company Blockhead Technologies has partnered with Sydney-based ABC Refinery to launch a system for tracking precious metals and detecting tampering.
The system is based on the creation of a unique digital footprint for every gold and silver bullion bar produced at ABC’s refinery in Sydney.
It is designed to give investors greater confidence that bullion bars they buy and trade are genuine.
Blockhead chief executive Greg Leach said there was increasing concern about tampering, which can see a third of the gold drilled out of refined bars and replaced with tungsten.
ABC’s parent company Pallion said it would bring greater surety to the market.
“The technology will provide the gold industry the surety that the metal they purchase from ABC Refinery can be validated as being ethically sourced and reliably tracked throughout its journey from the mine site to the marketplace,” chief commercial officer David Woodford said.
The partnership with Blockhead is the latest initiative by ABC to attract investors and take market share from The Perth Mint.
ABC said today it processes about 100 tonnes of gold and 500 tonnes of silver per annum.
The tracing system uses Blockhead’s smart tracking asset management platform (STAMP).
Its STAMP Vision product uses multiple photos of each gold bar and machine learning to create the digital footprint for each bar and store it in the cloud in a secure manner.
ABC Refinery clients can access this information using a mobile app and compare it to photos of their bullion to gain assurance it is authentic and not been tampered with.
Mr Leach said Blockhead would commence by capturing images of newly produced bullion bars.
The system could be expanded to cover all existing bullion bars from ABC.
