Sourcing standards
What a counterparty has to produce before a position opens, and which constellations are declined.
This page names no country and no company. It describes the yardstick Velcura applies, which is the more useful statement of the two: an origin claim is an assertion about somebody else that goes out of date, and a standard is something a counterparty can be measured against today.
The requirements below are met in full before a position opens. Not in parallel with it, and not afterwards when a review asks.
What a supplier has to produce
The company
A current commercial register extract from the country of incorporation, the constitutional documents, and evidence of who is authorised to sign.
The beneficial owners
The natural persons who ultimately own or control the company, with identity documents. A chain of holding companies is followed until it ends at a person.
Authorisation to mine and to export
The licence or concession the material comes from, and the authorisation to export it, both current and both issued by the competent authority.
Origin of the material
A record that connects the specific lot to the operation it came from. Not a general statement about the company, but a document about this material.
Sanctions and PEP screening
The company, its owners and its authorised signatories screened against sanctions lists and politically exposed persons lists, with the result recorded.
Assay at origin
A weight and fineness determination taken before shipment. It does not decide settlement, which follows the assay in Dubai, but a lot without one starts unexplained.
Complete export documentation
The export declaration and everything it rests on. Where a document was issued after the movement it records, the authority that issued it has to confirm it, and the confirmation belongs in the file beside it.
The transport route
Carrier, route, insurance and every point of handover, agreed in advance and documented as it happens.
What is declined
These are not warning signs to be weighed against the size of a position. Each of them ends the conversation.
Unclear title to the material
Where it cannot be established who owns the lot at the moment of sale, there is nothing to buy. A statement of ownership is not evidence of it.
Chains of intermediaries with no describable function
Where a lot passes through several hands and none of them can say what they added, the chain exists to obscure something. Length is not the problem; unexplained length is.
A chain that cannot be followed end to end
A document issued after the movement it records is not the problem. A gap that only the counterparty’s account can close is. Where the authority that should have recorded a movement cannot confirm it, there is nothing left to verify.
Payment outside a regulated channel
Settlement runs through a regulated channel, against documents, to an account in the counterparty’s own name. The account is the control, not the instrument: a payment that cannot be traced back to the counterparty on record is one Velcura cannot accept.
Why this replaces a statement about origin
A trading company that names the regions it buys from is telling you where material came from once. A company that publishes its standard is telling you what it does with every lot, including the ones it turns down.
The second is checkable. A counterparty can hold Velcura to it, and so can a bank.