Banks in Korea are halting the sales of silver bars amid surging demand, driven by increasing global uncertainties brought by U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff threats, industry officials say.
Lenders also earlier suspended the sales of gold bars, which have emerged as the most popular safe-haven asset in recent months.
Due to the surge in gold and silver prices and the resulting spike in demand, which has outpaced supply, the Korea Minting and Security Printing Corp. halted its supply of gold bars to banks on Wednesday, last week.
The Korea Gold Exchange, for its part, had already suspended bank sales of 10-gram and 100-gram gold bars since October while continuing to sell 1-kilogram bars.
However, with silver bar prices also soaring, the exchange notified banks of the suspension of silver bar supply on Thursday. It also noted that the remaining stock of 1-kilogram…
