Investors who fear the world banking system might one day collapse have always been keen on investing in gold. But many of the "gold" you can buy in a bank is not actual gold but rather a paper investment whose price is based on the world gold market price. If the bank goes bankrupt, you end up with a paper claim against the bank's overall assets. Such investments are known as scriptural gold, and they include for instance Precious Metal Accounts opened at Swiss banks.

Savvy investors don't want scriptural gold, they want actual gold. When the bank is just the custodian of actual physical gold deposited in the bank's vault, such an investment is called allocated gold. In case the bank goes bankrupt, this gold goes directly to the client. Swiss banks will sell you as many gold bars and gold coins as you want, to be stored in your safe deposit box in the bank's vault. They also sell palladium, platinum and silver. But physical gold has some drawbacks too - if you need to retrieve a small amount, you might have to sell a whole bar and end up with more cash than you need.

To alleviate this problem and try to render allocated gold investments as convenient as precious metal accounts, a new type of investment is now offered by some banks. ETF Gold Funds are funds whose only asset is physical gold. Each share in the fund is equal to a given weight of gold, and the value of the shares fluctuate with the value of gold. The fund is a separate entity not part of the bank's assets. This investment is very popular and also available for Platinum, Palladium and Silver.

We can open you a Swiss account with access to any of these gold investments.