S’pore exchange touts gold to the masses


FANCY owning your own gold bars that you can admire and take selfies with?

With the coronavirus fuelling demand for safe-haven assets for investors to park their cash, a Singapore exchange is offering mom-and-pop investors what it says is an easier way to get their hands on the precious metal.

The Singapore Precious Metals Exchange is seeking to do away with the notion trading in bullion is only for professional investors or the super-rich, by offering small amounts for reasonable prices that can be bought using a phone app.

“When we first started our business a decade ago, obviously we attracted the elite group, people who had money, ” chief executive Victor Foo (pic) told AFP. “But it’s our aspiration to be able to reach the mass market.”

The price of an ounce of gold topped US$2,000 for the first time last month – fuelled by worries about the economic impact of the virus as well as future inflation – and Foo says sales have risen.

But 80% of his customers are still high-net-worth individuals and the exchange’s most popular offering is a 1kg gold bar – setting them back more than US$60,000.

Foo is, however, keen to stress you can start much smaller.

For around US$70 you can buy 1g – a wafer the size of an SD memory card – while mini-bars weighing five, 10,50 and 100g are also available.

SGPMX says it is the world’s first precious metals exchange entirely backed by physical bullion, and investors can turn up whenever they like to admire their trove. — AFP





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