Innovation
Australian partnership to deliver gold transparency THE PERTH MINT AND SECURITY MATTERS ARE BRINGING THE WORLD’S FIRST MINE-TO-PRODUCT TRANSPARENCY SOLUTION TO THE GOLD INDUSTRY DURING A PERIOD OF GLOBAL UNCERTAINTY.
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old buyers are on the cusp of welcoming a technology that gives them 100 per cent confidence in ethicallysourced gold products. The Perth Mint has joined forces with ASX-listed protection and authentication company Security Matters to commercialise the high-tech proprietary supply chain solution called trueGold. The application will allow industry stakeholders to track the metal that they purchase from raw materials through to manufacturing and recycling.
This is possible through scientificallyproven molecular markers that are embedded in various stages of gold production, identifiable only to a unique energy reader. Security Matters founder and chief executive Haggai Alon describes the molecular sequences as “very strong” and “powerful”. “Significant changes can easily be made to supply chain processes when adopted by leading organisations and technology that can drive that change,” Alon
trueGold covers the supply chain, from raw material, commercial to recycle.
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tells Safe to Work. “By differentiating between and employing a different technique to each of the three major life cycles within the gold supply chain – raw material to production, production to commercial, commercial to recycle – we can create an entire technology driven ecosystem that promotes integrity, corporate transparency and accountability, anticounterfeiting and sustainability.” Metal obtained from war-torn areas, where child labour and other abhorrent practices are widespread, is indistinguishable to the end user from ethically sourced gold, according to The Perth Mint chief executive Richard Hayes. “This complete transparency will instil even greater trust in a commodity which already provides the ultimate refuge during times of economic and geopolitical turmoil,” Hayes says. Pre-dating the formation of Security Matters in 2015, Alon, the former chief coordinator of the Israeli military industry body at the Ministry of Defense, was exposed to the technology through his time at the government body. He negotiated a licence to use the technology with the Government of Israel, paving the way for a breakthrough in identifying ethically-sourced metals, including diamonds. “Australia is the natural house to grow this type of technology, adding to the fact that the country boasts a very strong culture of transparency and product liability,” Alon says.
