The German Dresdner Bank announced yesterday that it is to issue a new range of investment certificates on platinum and palladium prices today.

Platinum group metals form part of the wider portfolio of precious metals that are intended to realise the bank's ambition to give investors the chance to invest in precious metals without having to buy the material.

Wolfgang Wrzesnick-Rossbach, product manager in precious metals and commodities at the bank's Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein in Frankfurt, said up to ten million certificates would be issued for both silver and palladium.

One silver certificate will be worth an ounce of silver, while there will be ten palladium certificates for each ounce of that metal.

The spokesman said both private and institutional investors were being targeted, as, in Germany, VAT is levied on the purchase of metals, but not on the certificates.