South Africa’s Standard Bank, which is selling its UK-based markets division to Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, has emerged as a potential buyer of Deutsche Bank’s seat in the global gold price-setting process, according to three banking industry sources.

Involvement in the London “fix”, as the global gold benchmark is known, was until recently considered prestigious among investment banks, if not particularly lucrative. But heightened regulatory scrutiny of all financial industry benchmarks in the wake of the Libor scandal has made participation in the gold benchmark much less attractive to western banks.

Deutsche Bank said in January it was ending its involvement in the gold and silver fix, as part of wider withdrawal from commodity markets. The move followed an inquiry by German regulators into precious metals price setting. The four other banks who determine the gold price via a twice-daily conference call are HSBC, Barclays, Société Générale and Bank of Nova Scotia.