GoldMoney Explained

 This was the brainchild of highly-respected gold watcher James Turk.  Goldmoney was structured with a cast iron guarantee that there will always be 100% gold backing of every unit of currency (called “goldgrams” in this case) in circulation, and they claim that some others do not have the same cast-iron guarantees in their small print.  Whether this is true or not is hard to say, as for an ordinary investor the small-print is difficult to understand, but the discussions and articles available make interesting reading when deciding on the safety of providers you are considering.

Goldmoney, like e-Gold did, also tries to offer the use of Goldmoney as a medium of payment.  This however is not very heavily used right now, and the majority of investors are gold bugs simply buying gold and silver and holding it.

What could appeal to British or EU citizens about Goldmoney is that it is Jersey-based.  You may trust and understand the rules of Jersey more than those of the Caribbean or Panama.  This is not to say that other organisations are unsafe.  A US-citizen may just as easily understand Panama and believe it to be much safer than Jersey.

As time went by, Goldmoney has opened a variety of vaults to cater for the requirements of international buyers, including London, New York, Zurich, Singapore and Hong Kong.

GoldMoney also has a Silver option, and this represents an excellent opportunity for European Union buyers to buy Silver bullion without legally paying any VAT.  More latterly they also introduced the ability to hold the national currencies of Dollars, Pounds or Euros in your Goldmoney account and receive interest on it.  You can then switch your holding between any of the five denominations (including the two metals), as you see fit.

Knowing that it’s the fees that make investors poor and brokers rich, you are probably best off not utilising this feature.  The fees will quickly eat into your returns, and a buy-and-hold strategy is probably best.

Payment into GoldMoney is by bank transfer.  Payment out can be made by direct bank transfer.

One other aspect of GoldMoney worthy of mention is that at one point the terms and conditions said that if your account is not logged into for 12 years the ownership of your gold reverted to Goldmoney.  Okay,  it sounds unlikely, but consider what would happen if you died and never told anybody about your holding or even if you were unable to use the internet for 12 years due to some kind of accident or national crisis.

Overall, a highly respected organisation with the reputation of a known “gold-watcher” behind it.  Even if you don’t buy Goldmoney then there are articles available for free on the website that make interesting reading.

BullionVault Explained

Founded by Paul Tustain, Bullionvault is UK-based, although an additionally interesting feature is the ability to store your gold in their New York, London or Zurich gold vaults. Dependent on which country you are a citizen of, you will probably feel most comfortable placing your gold outside of that country so that is not subject to your local government jurisdiction, so top marks for considering that feature.

BullionVault allows you to buy and sell Gold on their impressive looking trading platform, where buyers and sellers of gold from each vault can meet and state their required selling/buying prices, so if you are more inclined to hold gold, occasionally sell on a dip, then buy in again later, then this could well be the best service for you.

Their fees for transactions and monthly storage are really low too, so they are very worthy of investigation. The storage fee is currently $4 per month fixed, regardless of holding size, and only payable for the months in which you held Gold.

Again, Bullionvault has proved popular with Gold Bugs accumulating gold for the future financial crisis they believe is in the offing.

Payment in to BullionVault is by bank transfer. Payment out is by bank wire transfer to your chosen bank account. A fee of approximately $30 is charged for this transfer, although there may be possibilities for UK residents to request a BACs transfer instead, which can take a few days but will not attract a fee.

BullionVault are currently offering a free gram of gold to all new account openings, which you can then use to experiment with trading in their system. Even if you open an account, you are not committed in any way, so well worth trying out to see if it’s for you. Visit http://www.investgold.co.uk to learn more.

Overall, Bullionvault is an excellent service. Both they and E-gold seem like decent operations, with much security behind them.

E-Gold explained

E-Gold was one of the first organisations to offer internet, or electronic gold. It was started up by a Dr Jackson who strongly believes in the gold story, and that gold is due a comeback as the trusted medium of exchange. E-gold started out in the USA and have since moved their jurisdiction to Nevis in the West Indies.

They offer deposit facilities and also heavily promote the use of e-gold for payments.

People conducting business on the internet may find an e-gold account especially useful because of its slant towards being used as a medium of exchange, and even traditional businesses in countries with high inflation could use it in future to agree prices with customers in terms of gold regardless of what happens to their national currency.

E-Gold have had such success with Gold, that they are now offering e-Silver, e-Platinum and e-Palladium too.

The process for transferring money into and out of E-Gold involves the use of separate payment providers. Authorised and recommended organisations are listed on their website. There is a fee of approximately 2% for transfer of funds in and transfer of funds out, plus you may also be liable to local bank fees. Different payment providers seem to have different fees, so it is well worth finding the best one for you. This system is quite flexible in that you can use a variety of payment systems to transfer money in or out, such as a credit card or Paypal account.

E-Gold also charge a storage fee for the days in which you own precious metals within their system. This is currently 1% per annum. This system of charging could work well for smaller amounts, or where your metal is used as a medium for exchange and thus many days your account holding is zero.

Overall, E-gold is an excellent service, with excellent levels of confidentiality you'll never find with a bank these days. Both they and Bullionvault seem like decent operations, with much security behind them.

Gold Investing cons

Please don't ever be conned by those dubious emails or websites offering you the chance to earn 0.5 to 5% PER DAY. Through "e-currency", gold or whatever. They often also chuck in a load of acronyms like HYIP (high yield investment plan), and the like.

I just found this example advertising on Google Adwords.

http://e-currencyprofitshome.com/?gclid=COjug5DY2Y8CFQJxaAodlSaW8g

If anyone can truly find an investment that returns that much per day, the best approach would be to keep quiet until you owned all the money in the entire world, which, with compounding actually probably wouldn't take as long as you think!

There are plenty of sites out there full of sad cases of people who are complaining about how their money has gone, no replies, no money back, etc. Actually, I don't think they are totally to blame because of their naiveity, since none of us ever get the right financial training in school to prepare us for the serious financial decisions we'll have to make in our adult lives.

The other sad thing is that E-gold is often the route for this money because it's harder to trace. I don't blame e-gold in the slightest, as these irreversible payments are a feature of a cash-based society instead of a credit one, but it probably will affect their credibility longer term.

Invest Gold UK

This blog has been created in conjunction with the new gold investing book How to Invest in Gold and Silver, and website available at Invest Gold UK.

Hopefully it can become a forum for free and open Gold and Silver investing discussion.