Why You Can't Fool a Fingerprint Sensor at London Gold Vaults with a Severed Finger

Henry Sanderson writes:

London’s vaults hold billions of dollars of gold, one of the largest stashes. Vaults owned by HSBC are used to back the largest gold exchange traded fund, the SPDR Gold Shares.

The vaults, in secret locations within the M25 orbital motorway, are normally equipped with extreme security measures such as blast doors and fingerprint sensors that detect the flow of blood to prevent the use of severed digits.

Also of note:

 London’s centuries-old gold market is to usher in an era of transparency with plans to reveal how much bullion is held in vaults in and around the city, including those controlled by the Bank of England...

Estimates from the LBMA suggest that about $26bn of gold is traded daily in the City but there are no official figures.

The LBMA plans to release the monthly vault data on a three-month lag, according to people involved in the process. It will show gold bars held by the BoE, the gold clearing banks, and those operated by the security companies such as Brink’s, which are also members of the LBMA, according to a person involved in setting up the programme.