"In a significant industry innovation, SIX Securities Services, the Swiss post-trade market infrastructure today announced the world's first delivery versus payment settlement capability against gold," the company said in a statement.

Under the system, gold is treated as a settlement currency as well as a foreign currency denominated in a so-called XAU unit. One XAU is defined as one troy ounce of gold valued in US dollars.

A SIX spokesman said the company has decided to launch the new service partly because of investors' current interest in gold "given the uncertainties in the market."

"We already have three currencies as settlement currencies, gold is the new currency," added the SIX spokesman.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011