SILVER Act

This bill amends the Commodity Exchange Act to reduce systemic risk and increase geographic diversity and competition for depositories that store precious metals used in futures contracts. It requires derivatives clearing organizations to adopt transparent criteria for selecting such depositories and to ensure depositories are located in multiple U.S. time zones.

Sec. 3, Precious metals depositories used in connection with futures contracts: This section amends the Commodity Exchange Act to require derivatives clearing organizations to develop and publish objective, transparent criteria for evaluating and selecting depositories for gold, silver, platinum, and palladium. The organizations must provide a formal application process for depositories. In selecting depositories, they must consider geographic diversity, competition, risk management, storage costs, and systemic risk. They must also approve new depositories in the public interest of increased geographic diversity, liquidity, market resiliency, market access, competition, and cost efficiency, consistent with security and quality standards. Additionally, each derivatives clearing organization must select at least two depositories in each of the Eastern, Central, Mountain, and Pacific time zones. The section also requires periodic assessment of market participants' ease of access to physical settlement regardless of location, and adds conditions for applying to and receiving approval as a metal service provider. Finally, it includes provisions for approval of metal service providers in the context of trade execution.