Britain's Royal Mint launches gold-backed securities tradable on London Stock Exchange

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's 1,100-year-old Royal Mint said on Monday it will launch an exchange-traded product this week backed by physical gold held in its vault in Wales, which will trade on the London Stock Exchange.

Gold exchange-traded products, which issue securities backed by metal they buy and store on behalf of investors, have become big business since the first was launched in the early 2000s.

They now hold almost 3,000 tonnes of gold worldwide, worth around $140 billion at current prices, according to the World Gold Council.

The mint said its product will have a management fee of 0.22% per year of the value of an investment, putting it towards the low-cost end of the market.

The Royal Mint was forced in 2018 to freeze plans for a digital gold token after the UK government vetoed a proposal to have it trade on a cryptocurrency exchange, Reuters reported at the time.

(Reporting by Peter Hobson; Editing by Jan Harvey)