Silver analyst, Ted Butler, foresees a shortage of physical silver developing as investment demand continues and looks for it to hugely outperform gold long term.
The bank says trading enthusiasm for bullion has eased from the scorching rate of the last few years as investors have become wary of the price volatility.
South Africa's Rand Refinery set up a trading office in Singapore 18 months ago and the so-called assaying and sampling facility will be finished by year-end.
The miner has urged its shareholders to back the cash call, warning that without the balance sheet boost it will be vulnerable in the face of fresh proposals from Xstrata.
East Africa's second biggest economy argues it is not seeing the fruits of soaring commodity prices, but the miners say hiking taxes and increasing royalties is the wrong approach.
The state-sponsored, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research has focused its attention on two mining robots and is now looking to enter into commercial ventures.