Buy gold, silver and platinum bullion online at the lowest possible price

Acting through the Chief Executive the BullionVault Board directs company policy to be implemented by the management team.

The management team is:

Paul Tustain

Chairman

Robert Glynne

Chief Executive

Justina Prytula

Finance Director

David Hemmings

CTO (Chief Technology Officer)

Adrian Ash

Research Director

Maria Vengut

Head of Customer Services

Daniel Jay

Marketing Director

Johnny Stewart

Product & Operations Director

Flora Ngu

Head of Trading

In total the company employs 32 people at its London office.

Having first won The Queen's Award for Enterprise, for Innovation, in 2009, BullionVault again won in 2013 for International Trade. The award is conferred by the UK's Prime Minister on behalf of the Queen.

Both BullionVault and its vault operators are full members of the London Bullion Market Association, [LBMA]. The LBMA forms the largest marketplace in the world for physical gold bullion.

BullionVault is also a member of the London Platinum and Palladium Market, [LPPM]. The LPPM is a trade association that acts as the markets principal point of contact with regulators and other official bodies, such as HM Revenue and Customs.

BullionVault is ranked number 11 in the 2012 Sunday Times TopTrack 250 league table of Britain's leading private companies.

BullionVault operates without gearing and carries sufficient surplus shareholders funds - held as cash and available at short notice - to operate with zero revenue for five years. For full financial figures please download the latest audited financial statements.

BullionVault publishes up-to-date Bar Lists from the vault operators it uses and publishes on-line the daily reconciliation of those bar lists to the daily register of bullion owners – which includes your holding listed under your private alias.

BullionVault publishes up-to-date Client Money Bank Statements and publishes on-line the daily reconciliation of those statements to the daily register of client money owners – which includes your holding listed under your private alias.

BullionVault's independent assayers are Alex Stewart International who annually inspect and reconcile the physical metal in the vault to the bar list, and report directly to BullionVault's auditors Albert Goodman, who publish that report on their own website.

Although we communicate with the world via the internet BullionVault is a bricks-and-mortar business which welcomes your visit. Come to our offices at 3 Shortlands (7th Floor), Hammersmith, London, W6 8DA, UK. You don't need an appointment, although it would likely save you some waiting time.

Your ownership and title would not be affected, although there would likely be a short delay before you could realise its value, while a liquidator was appointed.

A liquidator could not claim title to your bullion. That’s because you are the legal owner of all gold, silver and platinum that you buy through BullionVault. BullionVault is acting as a custodian, which is a status that's very different from your bank, and immeasurably safer for you.

With a bank account, you transfer ownership of your money to the bank when you make a deposit. Your money then appears on the bank's balance sheet, and you become its creditor. The bank would become insolvent (and fail) if there were insufficient assets to meet the liabilities owed to all its creditors, and that tends to happen to banks periodically because their business is to lend your money for profit, not simply keep it in a vault.

You have not made a deposit of gold to BullionVault. You are not BullionVault's creditor and do not appear on its balance sheet. Technically your gold, silver and platinum is the subject of a bailment - a legal status through which physical property remains yours while it is in the care of another. A liquidator cannot consider it an asset of the company, so would have no claim over it and must return it to you in full.

BullionVault's finances are very strong. Very few companies maintain debt free cash and bullion reserves - available at short notice - sufficient to cover the gross costs of running their operation for five years without any revenue. The standard equivalent requirement for the banking industry is 3 months.

Good delivery bars are manufactured by accredited refiners who are regularly subjected to double-blind tests by independent assayers. The bars spend their lives in accredited storage facilities and are transported only by accredited couriers.

They are the only form of gold automatically trusted upon receipt by professional buyers.

Once a year we send in independent specialist assayers who inspect the bullion and report to our auditors, who then publish the report on their own website for your inspection.

We are completely confident regarding the quality of the bullion in our care, and provide a full, permanent, 100% guarantee of its quality.

BullionVault gold bars are all of known weight and purity, which exceeds 99.5%. As with the rest of the professional bullion market only the pure gold content (gross weight * purity) is traded and recorded. The gold in your BullionVault account is therefore 100% pure.

Silver and platinum are different. Good delivery silver and platinum bars are refined to 99.9% purity or better for silver and 99.95% purity or better for platinum and traded at gross weight. The good delivery silver and platinum in your account is at least 99.9% or 99.95% pure, respectively.

Your gold, silver and platinum are stored in formally recognised bullion storage facilities, managed by specialist vault operators who are leading providers of precious metal vault services and secure transportation around the world.

Professional market vault operators produce what is called a Bar List. It's a bit like a bank statement, listing the account holder's stock of bars, and showing both the silver content or fine gold or platinum content of each bar and the total amount of bullion held. We publish the bar lists produced by the vault operators for BullionVault users' bullion.

BullionVault maintains the ownership records of all that bullion. Each day we publish online our daily register of owners, although we hide your identity by listing your holding against your alias. We also publish the total, and naturally the total matches the total on the bar list.

No other bullion business provides this daily and independent client-by-client proof that the right amounts of bullion are in the vault.

No. BullionVault settles immediately.

Your gold, silver and platinum are already safely in your chosen vault when you go online to buy. You pay the seller immediately with the cleared funds that you previously deposited into the BullionVault Client Money trust account. Your money becomes theirs, and their gold becomes yours. BullionVault guarantees that the deal, payment, and receipt of gold happen together, or not at all.

With this speed of settlement you gain enormously in flexibility if ever you need to act quickly - for example to move your property urgently across international borders. On BullionVault you can switch your tangible property between vaults in seconds. Thats much faster than your bank.

No. There are powerful controls.

First there are private protocols. We don't publish the details of those but they involve authorisation by several people from multiple companies.

There is also a transparent public protocol. For a removal to occur a 'Withdrawal Declaration' must be published on the BullionVault website's front page 24 hours before the bullion moves. This declaration identifies by alias the holder who is making the withdrawal. Any user can then check the published register to see that the withdrawing user has at least the quantity of gold which is being declared for withdrawal.

The vault operators are not allowed to complete a removal of bullion without confirming the validity of the public declaration for themselves.

Additionally under no circumstances can an amount exceeding the larger of 25 kg, or 5% of the total stored, be removed from the operator's control on any one day.

BullionVault uses a highly secure and encrypted system architecture in wide use across industry and government. But we all realise these systems are imperfect, so BullionVault goes further to protect your property even if someone were to gain access to your account.

‘Burglar alarm’: In the form of an SMS message sent to your mobile phone your Burglar Alarm can be set to sound whenever your account is accessed, or an order placed. It will always sound when a withdrawal request is entered, and before we wire your money. (A nominal charge of $0.20 per SMS applies.)

Your linked bank account: When you transfer funds from your bank account to BullionVault the two accounts are linked together. Outbound funds only go to your linked bank account, which can only be changed with a written endorsement from your new banker. Even if a third party were able to access your BullionVault account, they could only sell gold at the market price, and send the money back to you.

We regret we cannot offer tax advice specific to your circumstances. The following is general.

BullionVault operates from the UK where no taxes apply on the purchase of investment gold, silver or platinum bought for storage within the professional vaulting system.

Depending upon your tax jurisdiction if you sell your bullion at a profit it is likely that you'd be liable to a form of capital gains tax. For example, if an individual resident in the UK made profits exceeding £11,300 on gold in the 2017/18 tax year - and no matter which jurisdiction they had traded in - they would be liable to a self-declared liability of 20% on profits above the £11,300 allowance. Many other western countries have similar systems, with an allowance and a tax on gains thereafter payable at a flat rate.

Users often arrange to sell some of their bullion each year, but ensure that any profit they make stays within their allowance. While prices are rising this has the effect of providing tax free growth.

No, sales tax is not due on gold, silver or platinum purchases.

BullionVault gold, silver and platinum are all VAT (sales tax) free - for as long as they are held in accredited vaults. If you choose to withdraw your gold it remains exempt, but 20% VAT will apply if you choose to withdraw your silver or platinum bullion.

Yes - you can.

The vast majority of users keep their metal safely in the vault. When they sell, they receive cash in their BullionVault account which can then be withdrawn back to their bank account.

But you can also withdraw the metal. The fees vary according to the circumstances.

Where you cannot reasonably be paid safely by bank transfer we reduce our fee to just 1%, plus transport and insurance costs, regardless of the size of your withdrawal.

Where the normal bank transfer could be used, but you elect a physical withdrawal:

Gold

1. For whole, standard 400 oz gold bars the cost is 2.5% plus insured shipping.
2. Smaller standard 100g bars cost about 3-5% - depending on the location they are going to. This includes shipping and insurance.
3. We also allow withdrawal of non-standard amounts (e.g. smaller bars) but these cost 7.5% as we have to buy these products in to meet your request. The minimum withdrawal is 50g.

Silver

We only support withdrawal of whole 1,000 oz bars of silver bullion. The fee is 10%.

Platinum

We only support withdrawal of whole kilograms of platinum. The fee is 10%.

BullionVault gold, silver and platinum are all VAT (sales tax) free - for as long as they are held in our vaults. Upon physical withdrawal gold remains exempt, but 20% VAT then applies on silver and platinum.

It is very important that we do not provide you with a certificate! Why not?

A formal certificate changes the legal status of what you own from physical gold, to a security evidenced by a certificate which purports to be backed by gold. Suddenly the law has to consider what would happen if there were more certificates in issue than there was gold backing them.

Title to BullionVault Client gold derives from the register which modern technology (the internet) allows us to put in the public domain.

You will receive a monthly statement which reflects the register. You can view the register online whenever you want. This evidences your ownership every day, with a new electronic advice confirming your register entry. It's a bit like a certificate which lasts for one day, but it is not a true certificate. BullionVault is structured for you to own gold, not a security.

Yes. You can choose whichever you prefer, although note that we don't store silver or platinum in every location.

We allow you to spread your holdings across multiple locations, and it has no cost implication for you. Your charges are worked out as if all the bullion was stored in the same place.

Lots of people choose to store their bullion in an overseas jurisdiction because they see this as a wise precaution against the re-imposition of capital controls at some stage in the future.

You can deposit any amount. Our users have invested between $100 and $8,000,000.

You may choose to try the system with a small deposit and purchase before making a larger investment.

Please note that we recommend avoiding overall investments below $2,000. That's because the minimum monthly storage charge - $4 for gold and $8 for silver or platinum - may make your investment inefficient below this level.

See an example of commission and storage fees using our cost calculator.

Linking your bank account with your BullionVault account gives you a very high level of security.

Of course, we understand that it's not always possible to transfer funds from your BullionVault account to your original bank account.

For example, the original bank may fail, or your country of residence may impose restrictions that force you to leave and collect your money independently of your bank account. (In fact, it is for precisely these circumstances that many users want to buy gold for overseas storage.)

In exceptional circumstances, you can link your BullionVault account to a new bank account. When doing so, we will of course need to go through a strict security process to ensure the safety of your account.

Yes, of course. We offer a very friendly and knowledgeable telephone support service. Call us on weekdays during London office hours. All our support staff speak English and we also offer French, German, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Polish and Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese). Our contact numbers are immediately below this answer.