Polishedprices.com in collaboration with the Bharat Diamond Bourse (BDB) held a Round Table yesterday at the bourse on the topic: “Disruptive Changes in the Diamond Industry - Compliance, Financing & Derivatives”.

“The diamond industry is being confronted with a number of disruptive changes in the face of reduced liquidity, increased compliance imposed by financial market regulators and the prospect of derivatives opening up diamonds to the financial markets,” explained a note from the organisers.  “The historical driving forces that allowed diamond companies to thrive no longer seem to be as effective as they used to be. How can diamond traders respond to some of these fundamental changes and position themselves to become successful in a new era.”

Chrales Wyndham, chairman of polishedprices.com and co-founder of WWW International Diamond Consultants Ltd; Emma Muller, director at polishedprices.com; Ilya Polner, CEO SDiX (Singapore Diamond Investment Exchange); Stephan Mueller, Managing Director Swiss Global Asset Management (GAM) and Chairman of SFAMA ETF Expert Group; Geoffrey Wyatt, consultant RBS Markets & International Banking;  all made presentations on various aspects of finance, compliance and funding and instruments.

Post lunch, the attendees -- mainly comprising leading industry members from BDB as well as GJEPC, and officials from the banking sector – held discussions  in three breakaway groups on the following topics: Diamond Funds & Derivatives; Developing a new diamond sales channel: Commodity Trading & Financing; and ETF Rrequirements & Compliance.

“The main thrust of the deliberations yesterday was how to create a diamond ETF, list it and trade it,” said Anoop Mehta, President BDB. “There  is a group in Singapore which has set up such an exchange, and they have already put the infrastructure, permissions etc in place. It does seem that this is the direction in which things will develop in the future.”