Question 1

Why are VaultOne prices so much better than the competition?

Accepted Answer

Why are VaultOne prices so much better than the competition?

You'll have seen the current prices for buying gold, and selling, on our front page. At the moment, in ounces, it’s about [Sell] – [Buy]. Where do our gold, silver and platinum prices come from?

They come from other VaultOne users, just like you.

VaultOne offers a marketplace exchange in accredited, pre-vaulted, privately owned, professional market bullion. You get to deal directly with another user who wants to sell when you want to buy, and vice-versa. You both save money by cutting out the middleman, both when you buy and when you sell.

It’s easy too. You'll check the price on a price chart, choose your own dealing limit price, and enter your order.

The more competitive the price you post the higher your chance of doing a deal, and if you offer to pay the price at which somebody is already offering (the ‘Buy‘ price, or ‘Best Offer‘ - here ) you'll deal straight away.

There is 24/7 competition between users to offer each other the best price. That’s why VaultOne prices are genuinely ‘competitive’.

Our website makes using an exchange very simple and safe for you, and people from all over the world have quickly got the hang of it and empowered themselves to deal gold cheaper. Open exchanges and competing quotes get you better prices. That's why we do it this way. But if you're a bit nervous just call us. We're more than happy to help you through your deal on the telephone.

Question 2

How deep is VaultOne's liquidity?

Accepted Answer

VaultOne offers you exceptionally reliable and deep liquidity through four complementary channels.

The best price is usually offered by another VaultOne user. You deal direct with them, cutting out the middleman to your mutual advantage. This direct client-to-client dealing accounts for about 65% of trading volume on VaultOne. However clients aren't forced to quote great prices, so about 35% of the time our own price is better for you. That means you'll trade directly with VaultOne itself – via one of our robots.
'Robots' are computer programs which receive an electronic price feed and use it to quote prices on the VaultOne Order Board in just the same way as you and other clients do. Ours manage VaultOne's own $40 million inventory. Robots are subject to the same limitations as you, which means they can only sell what they already own physically in the vault, or buy with their cleared cash balance. You buy from them, or sell to them, just like you would directly with another client, but only while they offer a better price. It's as simple as that. VaultOne's robots usually quote prices in larger quantities than most clients do; sufficient to deal $2m worth instantaneously when world bullion markets are open. In normal circumstances they quote prices 24/7 and offer the most dependable and instantly accessible medium-size liquidity of any bullion trading environment anywhere in the world. Clients with an interest in computer programming often develop robots for themselves and use them to trade like professional dealers. This brings yet more liquidity to the marketplace.
Sometimes, like on the day Lehman Brothers went bust, clients acquire all the immediately available stock from our robots. Although we immediately buy new stock to replace what was sold it takes 48 hours to be delivered, and because the gold is not yet in the vault the robots have no stock to sell. At such times you benefit enormously from the access VaultOne gives you to the liquidity of the full depth of the London market. You can enter an order to buy or sell at the benchmark prices published by the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA). These prices represent the deepest daily pool of bullion market liquidity in the world – typically restricted just to professionals, which is why you access it through us. We allow you to buy or sell as much gold as you want at the Daily Price, and we take onto our own stock the rounded up fraction of a 400 oz bar. The London Prices published by the LBMA are used widely all around the world.
Finally we offer a special service for larger clients. They can telephone deal through us directly on the London Spot Market. During the London trading day they can deal whole bars of gold (400 oz multiples), half pallets of silver (16,000 oz multiples) or a minimum of 4 bars (18.66 kg) of platinum or palladium at the world market price. You might not realise how this service for wealthy customers contributes to your liquidity; but it does. Suppose a wealthy client had 400 oz of gold in VaultOne already, but with heavy demand from buyers there were few offers on the Order Board. The cheapest gold on VaultOne would start to drift above the world market price, as bidders bid over the world price. But the wealthy client can execute a spot market order to buy at the world market price, and offer the gold they already own in the vault to other VaultOne users for a small but easy profit. That's natural market forces being used to keep liquidity flowing at fair prices – and it works on VaultOne because anyone who can make settlement to the main market, in whole bars, can use the main market as a source or sink of bullion.

We believe the best way to offer you highly reliable and fairly priced liquidity is to open channels to the largest number of market participants and back it up with access to the deepest markets. Most of our competitors provide you with a single counterparty – themselves – and this reflects in their pricing. So if reliable liquidity at fair prices is what you are looking for, then VaultOne sets the standard.

Main market trades in options 3 and 4 incur a two business day settlement delay and have a different fee structure. Please see the tariff.

Question 3

Is VaultOne open- or closed-ended?

Accepted Answer

VaultOne is open-ended. An inbound or outbound armoured delivery is run whenever there are several bars to collect or deliver. Usually this is about twice a week. VaultOne itself is the main user of this open-ended structure, which lets us manage our own inventory to act as a buffer between the smaller investment sizes typical of retail investors, and the larger settlement quanta of the professional bullion market. However any VaultOne user who wishes to make or take delivery of 1 bar of gold (400 oz), a half pallet of silver (16,000 oz) or a minimum of 4 bars (18.66 kg) of platinum or palladium can use the same open-ended nature of the system by settling their professional spot market trades directly into or out of the vault.

Question 4

How does VaultOne compare to coins/bars and ETFs?

Accepted Answer

Compared to coins and small bars Coins and small bars are normally 7% more expensive than gold on VaultOne. Dealers also tend to buy back at a discount of about 1%. VaultOne prices can be compared reliably against the published spot price. Our gold buying and selling prices are usually well within 0.2% of spot, and silver and platinum within 1%. Although storing coins and small bars at home is free, it is not usually the . You will probably need to arrange your own insurance. For gold this is likely to be 10 times as much as VaultOne's combined storage and insurance fee of 0.12% for gold. Compared to ETFs (Exchange-traded funds) With ETFs, you never actually own physical gold. According to their trust deeds some ETFs are not even backed by gold; they are designed to track the gold price using complex derivatives. At VaultOne, we don't make something complex out of something simple. You own your gold. With ETFs, you would pay a storage fee of around 0.40%, and most ETF gold is not insured, even within that fee. At VaultOne, storage and insurance costs just 0.12% per annum for gold. The huge majority of ETF gold is stored in London and New York. The ETF manager chooses the jurisdiction – you don't. At VaultOne, we believe a choice of storage jurisdictions is important – as is the ability to switch. We let you choose. About 75% of our users choose Zurich, in Switzerland. ETFs are traded on major stock exchanges, which tend to be open 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. Not only do the results of referenda and elections usually come out overnight, but also there is now a of crises which the authorities have deliberately kept hidden until late Friday evening, so as to avoid the judgment of the markets for as long as possible. To their regular frustration this prevents ETF owners trading at the most important and advantageous times. Being a 24/7 service VaultOne remains open, and becomes exceptionally active during these events.

Question 5

Who manages VaultOne?

Accepted Answer

Acting through the Chief Executive the VaultOne 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
Valeria Paredes: Head of Customer Services
Daniel Jay: Marketing Director
Johnny Stewart: Product & Operations Director
Izabela Kacprzak: Head of Trading

In total the company employs 37 people at its London office.

Question 6

Who is VaultOne's regulator?

Accepted Answer

VaultOne is regulated under English law. More complex regulation under financial services rules does not apply, because our service concerns your outright ownership of physical property. Physical precious metals are a commodity, not a credit risk or a paper-based right traded as a security. So the trading, safe custody and delivery of bullion fall outside the terms and scope of the UK's Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. That means VaultOne is not, cannot, and does not need to be regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). It is governed by English law. If you were to think VaultOne had committed a crime, bringing a criminal case is not something you would have to do yourself. You would report – for example – a theft, and the investigation and prosecution would be the duty of the London Metropolitan Police, the UK Crown Prosecution Service, and the Criminal Court system. In addition you have recourse to the civil law if, for example, you were to allege that we were acting in breach of our stated Terms and Conditions, which set out the business arrangement between us. Note that bringing a case under civil law would ordinarily incur costs for you. Although it is not regulated by the FCA, VaultOne adopts many of the duties which have been applied by the financial services regulator to businesses which have responsibilities for other, less tangible, stores of private wealth. These include:

the segregation of customer property to be held independent of a company's finances;
the keeping of accurate records and the availability of those records for inspection;
the declaration of a conflict of interest when acting as principal in a transaction;
accountability to written Terms of Business;
adherence to a specified complaints procedure;
maintenance of a compensation fund.

What's more, the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) – of which VaultOne has been a full member since 2008 – defines the standards and practices of good commercial behaviour for the professional London bullion market, heart of the global precious metals trading and storage network. These standards are formalised as the Precious Metals Code, to which VaultOne adheres and which is recognized by the FCA as defining proper standards of market conduct in our sector. VaultOne is a rigorous adopter of all these good practices and seeks to maintain an environment where its compliance with these principles is visible and proven.

Question 7

Is VaultOne a safe organisation to do business with?

Accepted Answer

Having first won The Queen's Award for Enterprise, for Innovation, in 2009, VaultOne again won in 2013 and 2022, both for International Trade. The award is conferred by the UK's Prime Minister on behalf of the Queen. Both VaultOne 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. VaultOne is also a member of the London Platinum and Palladium Market, [LPPM]. The LPPM is a trade association that acts as the market's principal point of contact with regulators and other official bodies, such as HM Revenue and Customs. VaultOne 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. VaultOne 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. VaultOne 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. VaultOne'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 VaultOne's auditors Armstrong Watson, who publish that report on their own website. Although we communicate with the world via the internet VaultOne 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.

Question 8

What would happen if VaultOne failed?

Accepted Answer

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&rsquo;s because you are the legal owner of all gold, silver, platinum and palladium that you buy through VaultOne. VaultOne 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 VaultOne. You are not VaultOne's creditor and do not appear on its balance sheet. Technically your gold, silver, platinum and palladium 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. VaultOne'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.

Question 9

How can I be sure of the quality of the bullion?

Accepted Answer

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. VaultOne 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 VaultOne account is therefore 100% pure. Silver, platinum and palladium 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 palladium and traded at gross weight. The good delivery silver, platinum and palladium in your account is at least 99.9% or 99.95% pure, respectively.

Question 10

How can I be sure the gold, silver, platinum or palladium is in the vault?

Accepted Answer

Your gold, silver, platinum and palladium 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, fine gold, platinum or palladium content of each bar and the total amount of bullion held. We publish the bar lists produced by the vault operators for VaultOne users' bullion. VaultOne 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.

Question 11

Is there any counterparty exposure?

Accepted Answer

No. VaultOne Order Board trades settle immediately. Your gold, silver, platinum and palladium 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 VaultOne Client Money trust account. Your money becomes theirs, and their gold becomes yours. VaultOne 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 VaultOne you can switch your tangible property between vaults in seconds. That's much faster than your bank.

Question 12

Couldn't VaultOne's management suddenly authorise the removal of all the gold?

Accepted Answer

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 VaultOne 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.

Question 13

How do I know your website is secure?

Accepted Answer

VaultOne uses a highly secure and encrypted system architecture in wide use across industry and government. But we all realise these systems are imperfect, so VaultOne 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 VaultOne 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 VaultOne account, they could only sell gold at the market price, and send the money back to you.

Question 14

What are the tax liabilities?

Accepted Answer

We regret we cannot offer tax advice specific to your circumstances. The following is general. VaultOne operates from the UK where no taxes apply on the purchase of investment gold, silver, platinum or palladium 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 &pound;3,000 on gold in the 2024/25 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 &pound;3,000 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.

Question 15

Do I have to pay VAT/sales tax on my gold, silver, platinum or palladium?

Accepted Answer

No, sales tax is not due on gold, silver, platinum or palladium purchases. VaultOne gold, silver, platinum and palladium are all VAT (sales tax) free - for as long as they are held in accredited vaults. Gold generally remains exempt on withdrawal (though this may depend on the jurisdiction in which you live), but 20% VAT will apply if you choose to withdraw your silver, platinum or palladium bullion.

Question 16

take physical possession of the gold, silver, platinum or palladium?

Accepted Answer

Yes - you can. The vast majority of users keep their metal safely in the vault. When they sell, they receive cash in their VaultOne 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

For whole, standard 400 oz gold bars the cost is 2.5% plus insured shipping.
Smaller standard 100g bars cost about 3-5% - depending on the location they are going to. This includes shipping and insurance.
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%. Palladium We only support withdrawal of whole kilograms of palladium. The fee is 10%. VaultOne gold, silver, platinum and palladium 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, platinum and palladium.

Question 17

hold bullion in a SIPP using VaultOne?

Accepted Answer

Yes. See our SIPP information page to learn how.

Question 18

get a certificate?

Accepted Answer

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 VaultOne 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. VaultOne is structured for you to own gold, not a security.

Question 19

choose any vault location?

Accepted Answer

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

Question 20

deposit any amount?

Accepted Answer

You can deposit any amount. Our users have invested between £100 and £10,000,000. 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 £1,500. That's because the minimum monthly storage charge - $4 (currently about £2.95) for gold and $8 (currently about £5.90) for silver or platinum - may make your investment inefficient below this level. See an example of commission and storage fees using our cost calculator.

Question 21

link more than one bank account to my VaultOne account?

Accepted Answer

Linking your bank account with your VaultOne account gives you a very high level of security. Of course, we understand that it's not always possible to transfer funds from your VaultOne 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 VaultOne 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.

Question 22

just talk to someone?

Accepted Answer

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.

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Buying gold and silver: UK rates and costs

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0.50% - 0.05%

0.12%

0.48%

FAQs: Buying gold online with VaultOne