(Bloomberg) -- The gold market has launched a digital database to track bullion and keep precious metal from illicit sources out of the market.

The Gold Bar Integrity Database, developed by the London Bullion Market Association, will trace the precious metal in an effort to prevent supply from criminal gangs or conflict zones ending up in bank vaults. It will also seek to stop counterfeit bars stamped with the logos of major refineries from entering the market, as occurred in previous years.

“The rise of gold laundering and counterfeit kilo bars raised market and investor demand for more transparency in the origins of the gold we treasure,” said the LBMA Chief Executive Officer Ruth Crowell. “This work was quickly accelerated as one of the strongest use cases is helping participants around the world in meeting their global sanctions requirements.”

The ledger will initially focus on collecting data from LBMA-accredited refiners and London gold vaults. Those vaults, operated by large banks and secure logistics companies such as JPMorgan Chase & Co and Brink’s Co., contain approximately 695,000 gold bars, worth more than $700 billion.

Gold bars, which in London typically weigh 400 troy ounces, contain security features akin to a passport, which identity and verify their authenticity.