The London vault

Where is my bullion?

The London (UK) vault is run on our behalf by Loomis International, one of the world's largest operators of professional bullion vaults. Only our vault operator's staff ever handle BullionVault bullion.

A section of Loomis International's London vault is reserved exclusively for BullionVault customers. Your gold, silver and platinum is there.

The London vault operates under British jurisdiction.

What form does my gold take in London?

The London (UK) vault stores exclusively 400 troy oz (12.4kg) London Good Delivery bars. They have a minimum assayed purity of 99.5%. Your gold balance on BullionVault consists of the 100% pure content of those bars, which is calculated by multiplying each bar's gross weight by its measured purity.

These bars are the acceptable form for delivery to members of the London Bullion Markets Association [LBMA]. London's bullion market is one of the three biggest in the world and the best prices are attained for gold in a form acceptable to its members. Only bars from specific refiners which are held in a specific way - within recognised vaults and in recognised bar form - are accepted without qualification or cost. [Read about the chain of integrity]

What form does my silver take in London?

The London vault stores 1,000 troy oz (31.1kg) London Good Delivery Silver Bars. They have a minimum assayed purity of 99.9%. In line with standard bullion-market practice, BullionVault accounting units of silver are expressed in gross weight, not fine. They are denominated in kilograms and grams.

These bars are the acceptable form for delivery to members of the London Bullion Markets Association [LBMA].

What form does my platinum take in London?

The London vault stores 1-6kg Good Delivery Platinum Bars. They have a minimum assayed purity of 99.95%. In line with standard bullion-market practice, BullionVault accounting units of platinum are expressed in gross weight, not fine. They are denominated in kilograms and grams.

These bars are the acceptable form for delivery to members of the London Platinum and Palladium Markets [LPPM].

What is special about the London vault?

London is important because of the large size of its gold market. This is a result of historical accident: 100 years ago, when most of the world's major gold finds occurred, London was the provider of capital to gold miners everywhere.

London remains one of the world's major financial centres, being the hub of world foreign exchange markets, and the natural time-zone bridge between the USA and the far east.

Because of its market size London usually offers the most competitively priced bullion market in the world, and all around the globe bullion is traded 'loco London', which means a seller - even in New York - will possibly make his most competitive price to a buyer who will collect from a recognised London vault.

To the buyer willing to accept British jurisdiction - which has proven reliable over 200 years - London is a sound storage location and invariably attractive on price. In fact BullionVault itself often has to pay a premium to bullion merchants when buying gold for delivery outside London, and this is usually passed on to customers in the form of a slightly higher price for bullion in other vaults.

BullionVault's London vault gives private individuals access to an order board quoting direct, customer-to-customer prices for buying and selling the most marketable physical bullion product in the world. Taking dealing spreads, commissions and storage charges into account the cost of trading starts at a fraction of comparable retail gold services, and even on quite modest volumes active traders get down to commission rates of 0.05%, which is just $5 on a $10,000 trade.

Because you can earn rather than pay the market spread, in most trading scenarios BullionVault will easily beat the cost of trading gold futures; yet it does so without exposing the gold owner to credit risk on clearing mechanisms. So in addition to exceptional security, and competitive once-off trading costs, BullionVault also offers easily the lowest cost route to private active trading in allocated bullion.