As reported first on Bullion Desk, London-based commodities specialist ETF Securities has amended its filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission in order to launch a physically-backed gold tracker product with custody in Switzerland.

Earlier this year, as reported on IndexUniverse.com, ETF Securities made filings to the SEC to launch ETFs tracking gold, silver, platinum and palladium, called the ETFS Gold, Silver, Platinum and Palladium Trusts, respectively.  The platinum and palladium funds will be the first of their type available in the US market.

On 2 July the ETFS Gold Trust filed with the SEC to issue up to US$1 billion in ETFS Physical Swiss Gold Shares.  The custodian will be JP Morgan Chase Bank NA, who will, in turn, select a sub-custodian in Zurich to hold the trust’s allocated gold.

The existing physically-backed gold trackers run by ETF Securities in Europe, Gold Bullion Securities (LSE: GBS.L) and ETFS Physical Gold (LSE: PHAU.L), both have HSBC Bank USA as their custodian.  HSBC was named as the custodian in the original US registration for the ETFS Gold Trust.

In recent months gold ETFs run by Swiss banks ZKB and Julius Baer have gained market share amongst bullion trackers, with many observers citing the location of the funds’ gold custody in Switzerland as a key selling point.

The ETFS Physical Swiss Gold shares will trade on NYSE ARCA under the symbol “SGOL”.  The management fees to be levied on the shares have not yet been determined, a spokesman for ETF Securities said.

ETF Securities’ new filing comes at a time of intensifying competition in the gold tracker market.  Last week Source, the London-based issuer of exchange-traded products, launched the Source Physical Gold ETC, whose management charge, at 0.29% per annum, undercuts competing products by at least 10 basis points.

The US-based SPDR Gold Trust (NYSEArca: GLD) remains the largest gold exchange-traded product in the world by some margin, with over US$33 billion under management.