Standard Bank Group, South Africa's largest bank, said it had established an online trading platform for real-time trading of physical gold.
The new platform is the first website aimed at trading physical gold.
It comes amid soaring demand from Asia to buy into gold as a way to preserve wealth in the face of growing inflation.
'We had strong demand from our customers in Asia to introduce an online system. In these times of market volatility, the online facility enables customers to trade with greater ease and speed,' said John Wixley, Standard Bank's head of global markets in Asia.
The trading service will be launched in Asian countries such as India, Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand, but not in China.
The service was designed to complement the physical gold trading in China where it was mainly done with its Chinese banking partner Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the African lender said.
'We are providing the online trading platform in Asia outside China, so as to complement ICBC's existing strength in gold trading,' Mr Wixley said.