By Matthew Cowley 

LONDON--Six banks will participate in the auction to set the new electronic gold price that will launch on Friday, according to Intercontinental Exchange Inc., which manages the new platform.

Four of the banks-- Barclays PLC, HSBC Holdings PLC, Bank of Nova Scotia and Société Générale SA--had participated in the conference call used to determine the daily fixes, a system largely unchanged for nearly a century. The newcomer unveiled by ICE on Thursday is Swiss bank UBS AG; ICE said it would disclose the sixth bank on Friday.

The gold market has a daily turnover of about $150 billion, making it the largest precious-metals market. Much of that is carried out in London, the traditional center for metals trading. A wide range of firms, from mining companies to jewelers, use the daily fixes to buy and sell gold.

Gold is the last of the precious metals to make the switch to an electronic platform. Silver, platinum and palladium all made the change in the second half of last year. The moves were prompted by the intense regulatory scrutiny that arose after investigations showed manipulation of other major global benchmarks such as the London interbank offered rate, or Libor, and currencies.

ICE will manage the gold price on behalf of the London Bullion Market Association, which will hold the intellectual property rights to the fixes. The LBMA Gold Price will be will be set twice daily--at 10:30 Greenwich Mean Time and 15:00 GMT, which currently is 6:30 a.m. Eastern time and 11 a.m. EDT--in dollars, euros and sterling.

The U.S. Mint said Thursday it would use the LBMA gold price to price and settle all of its gold bullion orders, effective Friday. BlackRock Inc. said it would make the switch for its iShares Gold Bullion ETF on Friday.

Ruth Crowell, chief executive of the LBMA, said the new system would improve the transparency of the gold price.

For the first time, market participants will be able to see the amount of gold that is traded during each auction, and there will be historical records of all trading that can be scrutinized by them and regulators, said Finbarr Hutcheson, president of ICE Benchmark Administration Ltd., a unit of ICE. ICE has no vested interest in whether gold prices move up or down, he said.

On Thursday, the gold fix was set for the last time by private telephone conference call between the group of four banks--the system has been in place since 1919. The afternoon fix was set at $1,166.00 a troy ounce, slightly higher than the morning fix at $1,164.00.

The silver price made the move to an electronic platform last August, with a system that is jointly managed by CME Group Inc. and Thomson Reuters Corp. Platinum and palladium prices went electronic in December. Their platform is managed by the London Metal Exchange, which is owned by Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Ltd.

Write to Matthew Cowley at matthew.cowley@wsj.com

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