I am the CEO of HelloGold, a retail financial services platform that enables mass market consumers to access micro savings in investment grade gold through a mobile app (both Android and iOS). The mobile apps allow users to save, borrow and send gold at a minimum transaction threshold of ~USD0.25. HelloGold users have the opportunity to better preserve and diversify their wealth, as well as the ability to access short term financing by collateralizing their gold.

HelloGold makes gold affordable by allowing its users to buy very small weightage per purchase at international spot prices. Customers have direct ownership of the gold they buy. The gold bullion is stored in a vault in Singapore, fully insured against physical loss, and is fully redeemable as physical bars and coins, or simply cash.

Our partner in Malaysia is Aeon and we are about to partner with one of the largest banks in South East Asia. When the agreement is finalised, I will be in a position to disclose the name of the bank.

Before HelloGold, I was CFO of the World Gold Council where I was also part of the senior management team of the world's largest gold fund, GLD, with US$30 billion of gold under management.

hi

I inherited via will of a close relative Maple leaf 1Oz Gold coins eg Canada Maple Leaf Gold
Coins 1Oz

what can i do with it other than keep it? If i wish to sell it how and where can i get the
current price and where to or whom to sell it to?

https://www.crowdfundinsider.com/2016/12/93...ntech-platform/

syariah complaint too

question: how do you change mindset of chinese elders who buy gold and hide under bed?

the physical bar and coin market is largest segment of the gold investment space - many people simply prefer to hold gold physically under their bed. but it is the worst way of saving using gold.

I wrote an article in the Edge about this point - http://www.theedgemarkets.com/article/soli...bullion-traders

the only way you can change people's mindset is by 1) educating them on how best to save using gold 2) informing them on how to identify a reputable bullion dealer who can help them save gold at the best price 3) working with reputable partners that they trust

in my experience, when you can provide all that as I did with ICBC in China and Reliance in India before I started HelloGold - many will choose to save gold through you

Robin

well. that's wonderful - 10 oz of gold is worth about US$12k now. that's the good news.

the bad news is that most reputable dealers will not offer you a price that is close to the actual price of gold unless you bought the gold from them. mainly because they don't know if it is real gold. the only dealers that will offer you a good price will be a dealer that has the equipment to test that the gold is really gold and that they really weight 10 oz. they effectively should assay the gold. A company like Silver Bullion which is headquartered in Singapore but they have an office in KL will have the right equipment to assess your coin

here is an article (one of many on the internet) that will explain in more details the reason why a 10 oz coin is a challenge to sell at the market price - https://www.moneymetals.com/precious-metals...-silver-at-home

thanks but i think you misread my writing

if you look carefully i wrote 1Oz as in ONE Oz not 10 Oz

there are no 10 Oz maple gold leaf coins in existance

anyway thanks for the link and info

appreciate it and will action it soon thanks

Yes. You are right! I was super excited for you that you had 10 oz. the fundamental challenges still remain true. But folks at Silver Bullion should still be able to help

Hi , what is your price for 1 gram gold ?

Our prices are live and therefore change 'minute to minute'

You can currently buy RM1 worth of gold for RM180.46 per gram and we charge 2% fee


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Hi, mind explaining all those data in the picture ?

I took a snapshot of my account on the HelloGold app to see what the price was

ur price is not competitive compare to uob
https://uniservices1.uob.com.my/jsp/finance/fin_gia.jsp

The UOB product requires a minimum purchase of 20 grams and subsequent purchases in multiples of 5 grams. You are also required to maintain a minimum balance of 10 grams in the account otherwise the monthly fee is rm2.12

In contrast HelloGold allows a minimum purchase of RM1 and if there is no minimum of gold that you need to keep in the account.

Assuming you buy 1 gram of gold and hold it for one year and the price of gold is RM180. UOB fee payable would be RM2.12 x 12 months = rm25.44 whereas your annual fee at hellogold will be 2% of RM180 = RM3.60. The UOB fee is nearly RM22 more expensive than the HelloGold product

For those who want Shariah compliant gold, the UOB product isn't Shariah compliant whereas the HelloGold product is

The UOB product is available during banking hours v HelloGold which is available 24/7 on your mobile

Over the new few months, we will also enable customers to use their gold to apply for a Shariah compliant loan with Aeon whereas that facility is not available at UOB

I trust this helps

This post has been edited by robincflee: Apr 29 2017, 12:08 AM

If one has 10g of gold at uob, annual fee is zero. While hellogold cost rm36 annually.

That's correct. HelloGold is focused on providing services for the ordinary Malaysian

This post has been edited by robincflee: Apr 29 2017, 12:54 AM

Gold price daily change? If hellogold provide the 10 gram storage free service like UOB bank , should be awesome

U can buy/sell gold coins at UOB.

Source

The price at HelloGold is live - it changes on a minute-by-minute basis

The HelloGold product isn't paper gold -it is fully allocated, fully insured, and audited gold. There is a cost associated with all these features. In contrast, products at banks are typically unallocated, uninsured and unaudited

I hope this helps

I believe that you can only sell back coins at UOB that you bought from them. That is definitely the case for UOB Singapore




Attached thumbnail(s)

Who is verifying physical allocation? Who is the legal owner of the physical gold? Physical gold in what weight? How often do you trade the physical gold?

This post has been edited by icemanfx: Apr 29 2017, 08:21 AM

As HelloGold grows its business, we believe we can lower our cost-to-serve. As we are able to do that, we would like to pass these savings onto our customers

thank you so much I really appreciate your sharing

At the end of every day, HelloGold publishes a number of statements that show 1) the amount of gold our customers have with us 2) the amount of gold that we have with our vaulting agent according to our records and the corresponding bar numbers 3) a link to our vaulting agent's site that also displays the amount of gold that they hold on our behalf according to their records with the corresponding bar numbers

HelloGold will always have more gold than the total balance held for our customers - this is called over-allocation. We buy in whole 1kg bars and our customers buy in any amount with a minimum of RM1. So the 1st test is whether our records and our vaulting agent's record match in terms of bars held and whether the amount of gold held is greater than the total held on behalf of our customers

HelloGold only has allocated bars so we know specifically which bar belongs to us. The records of bars that we have our vaulting agent should show the exact same bar number.

You can review the customer and bar lists here - https://help.hellogold.com/en/how-do-i-know...stored-is-safe/

Every six months, an independent auditor - Bureau Veritas - will conduct a series of tests that verifies the physical allocation of gold. For more details, pls refer to this - https://help.hellogold.com/en/how-do-i-know...old-is-genuine/

We buy our gold from the refiner through our vaulting agent.

In terms of ownership, our terms and conditions set out that HelloGold acts as your bailee for your gold on your behalf - https://www.hellogold.com/terms.html. Your gold is owned by you.

I hope this provides with you with the necessary clarification

You can definitely buy and sell gold coins at most banks. However you are not usually able to sell coins to any bank other than the one that you bought it from and they reserve the right not to buy it back from you

"UOB accepts gold coin or gold bars originally bought from UOB Singapore or OUB Singapore. Customers are required to produce invoices of purchase satisfactory to UOB.The gold coins or bars must be in good condition (to be solely determined by UOB which decision shall be final). For the gold kilobar, the seal must be intact."

my problem is i dont have any official receipt but i know that the purchase of
the coins were from OUB (or UOB) singapore

ill find out and if there is anything worthwhile i will share info here too

thanks again

have just download your mobile apps will try it out later

first time buying gold online here

It seems the weakest link is hellogold and buyer has no protection against hellogold default.

Hmm. What should the people do when they hide the gold under the bed? Where to sell it?

what if suddenly hellogold shut down? what happen to our gold?

later become like JJPTR?

my concern exactly

how do you compare yourself to other FI in the market ?

Customer's gold is protected even if HelloGold closes for any reason because the gold is your gold and not ours

https://help.hellogold.com/en/what-is-the-d...allocated-gold/

In fact, the gold that HelloGold holds on behalf of its customers is legally safer than the gold stored by the bank for its customers

I have replied to an earlier post about this

Customer's gold is protected even if HelloGold closes for any reason because the gold is your gold and not ours

https://help.hellogold.com/en/what-is-the-d...allocated-gold/

In fact, the gold that HelloGold holds on behalf of its customers is legally safer than the gold stored by the bank for its customers.

Ownership of your gold in HelloGold is outright.  HelloGold bullion is not subject to a trust deed, and it is not anyone's liability. It is - quite simply - your outright property from the moment you buy it to the moment you sell it. In accepting the HelloGold’s business terms, you have engaged HelloGold as a custodian of your bullion. HelloGold has subcontracted the physical custody of your bullion to vault operators and the trading of gold to its liquidity provider - currently those two services are with the same party.  HelloGold retains responsibility for administration and record keeping.

The gold is your personal property and is treated under Singaporean law as a "bailment". In law, a "bailment" occurs when a person [the bailor - the customer] delivers physical property into the possession of another person [the bailee - HelloGold] on condition that the goods are either returned to the bailor at some later agreed date, or disposed of in accordance with the bailor's instructions. The essence of a bailment is that the bailee [a custodian] has physical custody of goods but they remain the outright property of the bailor. Simply put, the transfer of goods to a custodian does not grant a property right to the custodian, or to its creditors in the event of the custodian's failure. Instead the property remains that of the original owner until it is delivered according to the bailor's instruction.

I hope this addresses your concerns

I have replied to an earlier post about this

Ownership of your gold in HelloGold is outright.  HelloGold bullion is not subject to a trust deed, and it is not anyone's liability. It is - quite simply - your outright property from the moment you buy it to the moment you sell it. In accepting the HelloGold’s business terms, you have engaged HelloGold as a custodian of your bullion. HelloGold has subcontracted the physical custody of your bullion to vault operators and the trading of gold to its liquidity provider - currently those two services are with the same party.  HelloGold retains responsibility for administration and record keeping.

The gold is your personal property and is treated under Singaporean law as a "bailment". In law, a "bailment" occurs when a person [the bailor - the customer] delivers physical property into the possession of another person [the bailee - HelloGold] on condition that the goods are either returned to the bailor at some later agreed date, or disposed of in accordance with the bailor's instructions. The essence of a bailment is that the bailee [a custodian] has physical custody of goods but they remain the outright property of the bailor. Simply put, the transfer of goods to a custodian does not grant a property right to the custodian, or to its creditors in the event of the custodian's failure. Instead the property remains that of the original owner until it is delivered according to the bailor's instruction.

https://help.hellogold.com/en/what-is-the-d...allocated-gold/

If by FIs, you mean banks, then the gold that HelloGold holds on behalf of its customers is legally safer than the gold stored by the bank for its customers. Compared to most banks, HelloGold’s customers own only allocated gold. This obliges HelloGold’s custodian to hold the customers’ gold as their outright property, under a custodial or safe-keeping contract. Under well-established law of bailment (see above), a liquidator must return the formal property to the customer if any of the parties fail. In contrast, when a bank sells unallocated gold, the customer becomes a creditor - i.e. the bank owes you gold which it may not physically have. HelloGold’s gold is fully insured against all risks including loss or theft with cover in excess of RM300 million. In contrast, gold held by banks are not insured by Perbadanan Insurans Deposit Malaysia.

Other differences are as follows:
!) HelloGold will be the first shariah compliant gold product in Malaysia that will be fully compliant with the Accounting and Auditing Organisation for Islamic Financial Institutions’ (AAOIFI) standard on gold-based products. In contrast, most banks in Malaysia do not provide gold products that are compliant with this international standard.
2) HelloGold’s minimum purchase of RM1 is significantly more affordable than most banks which typically require a minimum transaction value of 1g and in multiples of whole grams (c. RM170)
3) HelloGold allows a minimum physical redemption of 1 gram. In contrast, some banks do not allow physical redemption while others only allow physical redemption of a minimum of 100 grams (c.RM17,000)
4) HelloGold is available through a mobile application on a 24/7 basis. Most banks only enable customers to buy and sell gold during office hours. Some operate extended hours but none provide a 24/7 service.
5) With the launch of the gold-backed personal finance product with Aeon Credit, HelloGold will offer customers the ability to use their gold as a form of collateral at market beating rates. No bank currently bundles its gold investment account with a lending product.
6) In 2017, HelloGold will enable its customers to transfer gold between accounts at no cost. No bank in Malaysia provides this facility.

I hope this answers your question

i appreciate you taking the time for replying lowyat forumers and the desire for blockchain technology. i have registered via the app and will explore my way in.

The ownership of physical gold belongs to hellogold. If hellogold in default, customers has no recourse or protection.

This post has been edited by icemanfx: Apr 29 2017, 03:27 PM

How does HelloGold make money?

The contractual relationship between HelloGold and the customer means that the gold belongs to the customer and not HelloGold. We simply store it with the custodian. I found this link for you to read so that you can see for yourself - but pls feel free to google for more aspects

https://legaldictionary.net/bailment/

The use of bailment principle is common to many of the largest online gold bullion providers - Goldmoney in the US and BullionVault in the UK

we make money through
1) our annual management which is 2% per annum. we accrue for this on a daily basis and we charge this on a monthly basis
2) our transaction fee which is 2% on the value of gold bought/sold
3) when the Aeon personal finance product is launched, we will share part of the income earned from the provision of the loan (we are still working on the product with our partner, Aeon Credit Services)

Very expensive

In the event of hellogold default, customers rights to the gold is way below other creditors. Beside if hellogod liquidated gold, customers would have no control or protection like geneva gold.

that depends on how much gold you plan on buying

if you are buying say RM100, you pay RM2 against spot and RM2 for annual management - that is cheap
if you are buying say RM1k, you pay RM20 and RM20. you might argue that it is cheaper to buy the GLD - but that will cost you RM80 in fees on the way in
if you buy UOB gold, you need to buy a minimum of 20g and if you have less than 10g, you are charged RM2+ per myth - so if you have 1g of golf, you end up paying RM24+ a year in fees
if you buy RM100+k in gold, then the cheapest way of buying gold is through GLD - no one is cheaper and safer

i am afraid that you are wrong

because gold held by the customer belongs to the customer and not hellogold, these are not assets of hellogold that can be seized by the liquidator/administrator to repay creditors

by way of contrast, the gold in most bank investment accounts are a liability from the bank to the customer and therefore the customer is a creditor

Irrespective of absolute, 2% mgt fee per annum plus 2% per transaction fee is very high. If you buy once, sell once and buy once again to hold till end of the year...that's 8% gone. Gold as an investment or as a hedge for whatever is overrated. You get zilch for holding it.

Your customers' claim to the gold through bailment is only as good as your records provided to the bailee.

If your records is messed up, intentionally or otherwise, then your customers have no recourse.

In contrast, a bank is a big corporation with long history in business. They carry high level of credibility and confidence to their customers

I think many would rather be a creditor to a bank then a bailor of an arrangement of a new company

Hellogold is not a trading platform to take positions in and out of gold throughout the year. Holding any asset or less than a year is not really for investment. It is designed to be a long term savings (c 3-5 years) vehicle for people to access investment grade gold at an affordable transaction size and which will also allow them to get access to personal financing at an affordable rate

In terms of gold as a hedge, it is not a good short term hedge as gold tends to be completely uncorrelated 1) in the short run to most asset classes and 2) when markets are behaving 'normally' or volatility is normal. Gold acts as a great hedge - in the emerging market context of the ordinary people of ASEAN- against any weakening of the local currency in the short term and against inflation in the long term

Based on this analysis, your customers would be small gold buyers of less than 10g-20g

That is your niche market. Any bigger gold purchase, customers would be better off buying from UOB and GLD

You are correct to be concerned with how any start-up is set up and looks at risk management. We manage our transaction records very carefully

1) we publish our customer records in public at the end of each day so that everyone can examine them and reconcile these to the gold positions
2) every time a customer makes a transaction, it is recorded not just on our database but a record is posted in his app and confirmation is sent to the customer
3) We have appointed Deloitte as our auditors- they will provide us with feedback on the strengths and weaknesses of our internal controls on an ongoing basis
4) we are currently developing a series of blockchain contracts that will enable us to move our customer records from the traditional database which can be manipulated as you pointed out to a private blockchain where records are by their nature immutable. When this phase of work is complete, we believe that our customer records will be safer from a immutability perspective than those held in most traditional banks
5) I believe that the company HelloGold keeps will provide additional comfort to our customers. Our launch partner is Aeon Credit Services in Malaysia. We also hope to be announcing a tie up with one the largest banks in ASEAN in the next month or so. Moving further along, we are in discussions with one of the largest mobile Operators in the region as a partner and a key investor who helped to launch one of ASEAN's most succcesful start-ups in recent years

We are focused on helping ordinary people in ASEAN save better and get access to more affordable financing. There are plenty of banks and brokerage houses who have great products to offer but they only really make these available to the wealthy and mass affluent and not to everyone

TS looks cool bros.... a lot of flak from forumers and still cool answers...

Ya...new start-ups always face customer confidence issues. Glad to hear you are in the process of partnering big companies.

All the best to you and your venture !

I understand you are a start up and need all the margins to survive. Hope when you grow larger, you will be able to compete with the big boys !

Short term or long term is not the point. Transaction cost and management fee too high. At 2%, it is like the more I invest, the more I pay you 2%. It is like your company are depositing FD with me and I have to pay you 2% every year. LOL. The money comes from me! If I invest in a fund and the fund provides expertise in managing my money to beat the market, then 1% or 2% management fee is still justifiable. Now retailers invest with you and you do not provide any expertise and you charge 2%? that's ridiculous! Oh well.......I hope retailers will see that this is a rip off. However, 99.99% of the time they are not aware of such things. Not surprising given forex and whatever fast money schemes have done well with even more ridiculous things. This is a good business proposition for you, congrats. I hope I have done my tiny part to let retailers know that in the long run, whatever small amount they invest is meaningless to them ( and hence the word hedging is laughable) but collectively they represent a 2% income to your company. Of course, you will say it will cost a bomb etc storing those things but just like how the banks work, I am quite sure only a small % is kept in physical to meet the small "exchange into physical" requirement.

BTW, whats the personal financing you talk about?????? it sounds fishy already...sorry..couldn't resist

Sorry - what's TS?

Thanks! We simply want to serve the markets that the big guys don't want to serve

We are very transparent about what we charge - https://help.hellogold.com/en/category/fees/ - we want customers to know exactly what the fees are so that they can make an informed decision

As I have said in a number of other posts, the gold is fully allocated which means that 100% of the customers' gold sits in the vault 100% of the time. In fact, we are over-allocated in that we have more gold sitting in the vault that our customers gold has. I have summarised what I have posted in previous replies here and I will include the link for you to review at your leisure

At the end of every day, HelloGold publishes a number of statements that show 1) the amount of gold our customers have with us 2) the amount of gold that we have with our vaulting agent according to our records and the corresponding bar numbers 3) a link to our vaulting agent's site that also displays the amount of gold that they hold on our behalf according to their records with the corresponding bar numbers

https://help.hellogold.com/en/how-do-i-know...stored-is-safe/

Over and above this, if customers want to check on the gold, we can organise for them to visit the vault in Singapore. Obviously this necessarily needs to be arranged during the working week and during working hours

In terms of the personal financing question, in ASEAN, less than 20% of loans granted to individuals were from banks or non-banking financial institutions. In contrast, more than 25% of individuals borrowed from friends and family, private lenders and employers. Where unsecured bank loans are available, the financing costs are extremely high with an effective lending rate of 15% to 25% in Malaysia as an example. SO we have tied up with Aeon Credit to try to help our customers get access to more affordable shariah loans.

Say you have 10 grams of gold that is worth RM2000, and you need access to emergency cash, Aeon will provide you a loan for 70% of the value of the gold for a year for a fee that will be equivalent to 8+% p.a (but this is subject to confirmation). So you don't have to sell your gold to get cash and you have a year to pay off the loan. Obviously if you don't pay off the loan on time, Aeon will instruct HelloGold to liquidate the gold and repay them the outstanding debt. Any remaining monies after the loan has been settled would be returned to the borrower

how about silver?

We have plans to bring on the other precious metals (silver definitely, potentially platinum too) - probably in 2018. Right now we are focused on launching a number of other products and features for gold

Hellogold business concept sounds good and easy to understand, at least to me. It is a bit like a pawn shop concept but with only gold as your collateral.

Tying up ith Aeon is a good move as even if people do not trust you, they will trust the Aeon brand name.

Good luck to you friend Robin Lee. I am happy that there is another way to enable fellow Malaysian to raise emergency cash!

Xuzen

Given the questions and concerns that many rightly have about whether gold products are scams or not, I thought I would share with you an article I wrote for the Edge. It sets out the key attributes that people should think about when they are looking at using any gold provider - whether it is HelloGold or any other platform

http://www.theedgemarkets.com/article/opin...all-glitters…

Well, I think HelloGold is providing another venue for small timer like me to start invest in gold. Some of the banks requirements are too much for ikan bilis like me.

Glad to hv alternative.

Thanks for the feedback. We are launching some new features in the next month to the application which we hope will be interesting and useful for our customers. And we will be announcing an investment by a major singaporean bank and a singaporean government fund in our business.

If you have any questions at all, please feel free to post it here or ask us on the chat function on the app

Robin

I think your average Malaysian is more than able to afford 10g of gold, the price of that is around Rm1600+ ? I can't see anyone with a smartphone and Internet not being able to afford Rm1600+


This post has been edited by wodenus: Jun 3 2017, 07:02 PM

I wish you were right. It would be great if Malaysians have that much disposal income

But according to BNM, 3 out of every 4 Malaysians do not believe they are able to put together RM1,000 if they had an unexpected emergency. Based on this report from BNM, I am not sure that the average Malaysian has as much as that. And based on our own customers, the average gold holding is much lower than RM1600 per customer

Hello Mr Robin Lee,

TS = Thread Starter
*Regular short form in the forum.

Have anyone here have tried HelloGold app and buy golds on this platform?
Care to share more on how it works?

Damn expensive fees, 2% annually and during transaction?

Geez man, people are better off buying from 1/10 oz coins or 1G bar - those are just 200-600 only, and you get the physical gold.

This smells like Geneva gold all over again.

When you buy a 1 gram coin, you will find that the premium that you pay over the prevailing spot price far exceeds our fees. Typically this premium is between 20% to 50% over the prevailing spot price. With HelloGold, we buy 1 kg bars and we enable our customers to buy fractions of the bar for as low as RM1 a time.

I would encourage you to read our FAQs on how we store our gold and the transparency that we provide - https://help.hellogold.com/en/how-do-i-know...stored-is-safe/

We are hoping to announce in the next week two new investors - one is one of South East Asia's largest banks and the other is an investment fund of a South East Asian government

We have video tutorials on YouTube as well as an extensive set of Q&As on our FAQ website - https://help.hellogold.com/en/

If you have any specific questions, please ask it here and I would be more than happy to answer them

Robin

So tell this, since you keep on emphasizing that whatever gold we purchase is ours - so what would happen if I buy 1g of gold from you and I WANT the PHYSICAL 1g gold.

You're gonna melt down that 1kg bar that you have sitting in your vault somewhere to grams?

Mr Robin,
Thank you for sharing, I shall take a look on that.
Have a pleasant day ahead.

Never mind, I found my answer on your website.

So you don't buy back the actual physical gold that we redeem from you?

High fees, 5 business day redemption period and physical gold given is just your standard pamp suisse which can be bought online practically anywhere with no 2%+2% fee, and you do not accept back the actual physical gold that we redeem if we were to buy it from you.

So how is this supposed to be attractive again to gold investors?

The process works as follows: we buy back the 1g from you at the prevailing price - the 2% fee. we then quote you the prevailing price for a 1g PAMP bar which will include the courier, insurance, packaging costs from Singapore

Our business is focused on helping individual save with gold. It is similar to GLD which I am sure you are familiar with - but at significantly lower transaction size. We enable customers to save with gold with as little as RM1. Customers can also transfer their gold at no cost to other HelloGold customers. And before the end of September, Aeon Malaysia will be launching with us a loan product that will enable our customers to use their gold as collateral for personal loans at significantly below market rates. We believe that these product features are and will be attractive to many people because they do not require to hold the gold physically. As the CFO of the world's largest gold fund, I can tell you that professional institutional investors tend not to hold physical.

That said, for people who simply want to hold and keep physical gold in their house, there are many different ways to buy the gold coins/bars as you have pointed out. You can buy bars from jewellers, banks, online dealers.

Robin

I can now also announce that Finlab in Singapore is one of our investors. The Finlab is a joint venture between United Overseas Bank and a Singapore technology agency, SGInnovate

https://e27.co/8-companies-get-ready-singap...ohort-20170614/

This post has been edited by robincflee: Jun 15 2017, 01:01 PM

So you're trying to help people to save money by enabling them to purchase small amount of gold, hence your main selling point is for people NOT to get physical gold from you since getting physical gold from you is considerably more expensive than others and you do not even buy back your own gold.

Then you go on saying that institutional investors do not hold physical gold, sure, I agree, but institutional investors do not buy RM1 worth of gold, do they? So what exactly are you getting at here? Making gold available to non-institutional investors who would buy at small amounts and expect them to have the same behaviour of institutional investors who purchased huge amount of gold?

Hmmmm.......

For many people in emerging markets, they only have access to cash deposits that 1) return zero or very low interest and 2) keeps them exposed to local currency risk. This market do not typically have the ability to access fixed income or money market funds. We believe that gold can help them save better and, through our lending product, get access to more affordable loan products.

HelloGold enables them to start saving from as low as RM1. So for customers who can not afford to buy a whole coin, they can start buying gold for any amount that they can afford until they achieve the right weightage. They can then choose to redeem the physical gold bar at that point or they can continue to save through the 1kg bar. It is a choice that they can make.

Moreover, if they were to buy, say 1g of gold trading at a spot price of say RM170, the cost from HelloGold is RM170 + 2%. The physical coin premium, as I had mentioned earlier, would be anything between 20% to 50%. With HelloGold, if they want to sell their gold, they can do online through the app anytime from anywhere and get the prevailing price - 2%. If they had the physical gold, they would have to take it back or mail to back to the shop and the trade-in price would typically be lower than the 2% spread that we charge.

We offer a more convenient way of accessing a gold savings product than buying and holding a physical coin because it has a lower spread and you can buy and sell anytime.

If our customers want to take delivery of the physical gold bar, they simply have to call us up to arrange delivery. Based on the feedback that we have gotten from our customers who have enquired about physical redemption, the costs are in line with the market.

So basically hello gold is just like the normal gold savings account from the numerous banks we have in Malaysia, only difference between hello gold and normal bank gold savings account is -:

a) hello gold min purchase is RM 1, bank min purchase is 1g

b) hello gold 2% annual fee, bank has no annual fee

c) hello gold doesn't buyback physical gold even if it's from hello gold, bank buys back physical gold as long as the gold is from the bank

d) physical gold withdrawal charges differ between banks and hello gold

you are partly right and partly wrong

1) most banks do not offer their product on a mobile phone or 24/7 whereas HelloGold is mobile and 24/7
2) their gold product is typically not shariah compliant because the banking gold product is typically unallocated whereas HelloGold's gold is allocated gold
3) their gold product is not insured whereas HelloGold's is fully insured
4) it is not true that banks don't charge a fee. some banks charge an annual management fee. For example, UOB charges an administrative fee of RM2.12 per month if the balance of the account falls below 10gm at month end. so if you have only 1g of gold worth RM170, your annual fee will be RM2.12 per month or RM25.44 per annum which is equivalent to 14.96% annual fee - http://www1.uob.com.my/business/GMIM/GMIM_pga.html
5) it is hard to compare physical withdrawal prices because they are on prevailing rates. but the principle that is adopted tends to be the same e.g. the differential between physical gold price and the cost of the coin + processing fee
6) you can transfer the gold to another person with HelloGold. Banks do not provide this feature
7) you will be able to collateralise the gold against a loan - we are working on this with Aeon Credit. Banks do not provide this feature

Any reason why HelloGold does not buy back its own gold?
How does it compare with KFH gold account?

Maybe because they're giving you gold plated fake things instead of real gold? HAHAHAHAHAHA.

That no-buyback of own gold is one very suspicious thing and that is the deal breaker for me - I'd rather buy my gold somewhere else.

Nubex is not bad for bars and coins, and they buy any gold.

HelloGold currently does not buy back gold for two reasons. 1) we are not able to verify the integrity of the gold bar after it leaves our control and the control of our vaulting agent as we do not have assaying facilities at this point. 2) our business is able to offer our customers a narrow spread because we hold 1kg bars and not smaller bars - if we hold bars of smaller weightage, it would increase our costs and we would have to pass that onto our customers. That said, we intend to work with one of our partners next year on the feasibility of creating a retail physical gold product. If we proceed to offer that product, a buy-back provision will likely be offered.

In terms of the KFH product, there are a number of differences

gold - we use 999.9 finest gold which is the highest grade commercially available and this gold is fully allocated. KFH offers 995 gold which is lower grade and less valuable and it does not necessarily have fully allocated gold. This is important because allocated gold means that the gold belongs to you. whereas unallocated gold means that KFH is a debtor and owes you the gold as its creditor.

price - we provide the latest prices to our customers through our app. and as of now our prices (inclusive of our buy/sell fees) are better - our current buy price is RM176.09 whereas KFH is RM176.34 per gram. Our current sell price is RM169.17 whereas KFH's is RM168.20 per gram

transaction size - our minimum transaction size is RM1 for any buy or sell. KFH has an initial minimum of 10gm which is RM1763 and subsequent minimum purchases of 1g which is RM176.30

minimum balance - our customers can have a zero balance with us. KFH requires a minimum balance of 2g which is RM352.68

management fee - we charge 2% per annum to cover the costs such as insurance, vaulting and auditing of the gold. KFH does not charge for the gold account because it does not provide insurance and audit of the gold

statement - we update our customer holdings constantly through our app with the latest value of the gold based on the sell price. KFH only provides monthly statements

cash payment - our customers can bank their cash into their HelloGold account from any bank. KFH requires customers to open a KFH savings or current account

physical gold redemption - we enable our customers to redeem the physical gold and it is delivered to them but we charge for the gold coin premium differential, delivery and insurance. KFH offers physical redemption at the branch but i can't find out if they charge you for the gold coin premium differential

buy-back - we currently do not offer buy-back provision. KFH offers a buy back option provided that 1) the packaging and security seal of the physical gold remains intact; and 2) t The serial number and the barcode printed on the face of the packaging of the physical gold matches KFH Malaysia’s records

audit - our gold is audited twice a year by an independent precious metal audit firm. KFH does not offer any audit service to assure customers that the gold exists

daily reconciliation - our gold undergoes a daily audit of our customer and bar lists against the records of our vaulting agent. KFH does not provide details of the gold that it holds for its customers

insurance - our gold is fully insured. KFH does not have any insurance to cover its gold

gifting - our customers can gift gold to any customer in any denomination to 0.1 grams. KFH offers a similar gifting product for 1g and 2g

I hope this helps

robin

This post has been edited by robincflee: Jun 22 2017, 02:58 PM

We are not a bullion shop. Our main business model is to provide a gold accumulation product, a collateralised lending product through our partner, Aeon Credit, and a gifting service. The physical redemption feature is not core to our business model unlike traditional bullion shops but we offer with support from our vaulting agent.

We take delivery of 1kg PAMP bars which are audited every six months by the Inspectorate. For those familiar with international best practice, you will appreciate that the biggest gold fund in the world also use the Inspectorate to give assurance on the gold that they hold on behalf of their clients.

Our investors include Finlab which is JV fund between UOB, the Singaporean bank, and SGInnovate, a wholly-owned Singapore government fund. Our marketing partner is Aeon Credit Services Bhd, a listed company in Malaysia. Our auditors are Deloitte Malaysia. Our lawyers are Zaid Ibrahim.

This post has been edited by robincflee: Jun 22 2017, 03:17 PM

Starting to sound like typical ponzi/mlm/scam business whereby they focus mainly on piggybacking on other established organizations instead of own success.

The ability to pawn our gold for money/collateral for loan is nothing new, you're not innovating anything by simply partnering with Aeon Credit, don't really need to highlight that every single time where your business model is being questioned.

Also, stop highlighting Deloitte like they're such a big deal if they're your auditors. Auditors are - no matter how prestigious they are, basically your suppliers and they bow down to you because you're paying them. Everybody knows about Enron - who was their auditor? Ah......same thing with your lawyers too.

You can just say that you do not buyback your own gold because you don't want to since you only want to profit from your exorbitant fees, that would have been simpler. Buying your own gold back would essentially open up risks to you if gold prices surges up and you'd have to pay more than your cost, hence losing your profit.

Also, since you keep on emphasizing on your 1kg gold bar - I suspect even withdrawing gold from hellogold would be hard - sure I can buy and accumulate until I have 10g of gold - but you store 1kg gold bar at your vault, you're gonna chip off 10g if I want my gold?

Banks who are established also buys back their own gold, you know, so gold buyback is not limited to just bullion or gold shop.

Your mobile app and buyin 24/7 idea is great, makes life easier but again - your no buyback gold policy is a major turnoff. MAJOR turnoff. It also means that if I accumulate my gold with you, and one day you ship off my gold bar and I get a fake gold - you can just run away from the liability - saying postage is insured, etc but insurance doesn't cover much since posting precious metals are always risk and some postage doesn't even accept it.

There is ZERO confidence when you are promoting your gold but you yourself do not accept your own gold.

How can someone else be confident with your business when you do not even accept your own gold? Like literally if I go to your office and withdraw my gold and 2 seconds later I said "changed my mind, I want cash back", and you say "nope", what the heck is that? First thing anybody's gonna think is that "what shitty gold did you give me that you won't even accept it".

I don't think a Singapore government fund would invest in a business that it is uncomfortable with. I would encourage you to check the Finlab website if you want to verify their investment.

Say you have 10g of gold and you want to redeem the gold, you call our service centre and we quote you the price for converting the 10g fractional ownership of gold in the 1kg bar into a 10g bar. If you decide that you want to proceed, we buy back the 10g of gold from you at the prevailing price and add on the required premium for buying a 10g bar. We then place the order for the 10g bar and have it delivered to you. You can check the authenticity of the bar through the PAMP app that can be downloaded separately and managed by PAMP.

In terms of our fees, in response to another post, I did a quick check another local bullion provider and we are competitive

With regards to our loan product which we hope to launch by Q3, I think you will find that will be market beating in terms of its fee structure. But we are not able to release further information about the loan details at this point.

As I had explained in the earlier posts, we use established principles for managing our customers gold based on what is done for GLD which I am sure is a product that you are familiar with.

With regards to buy-back, I have also explained why we currently don't offer that service. In addition, our customers have not typically required physical redemption of their gold and therefore the additional cost of provinding that service does not make commercial sense for us at this point.

Last but not least, no one should save gold with any business that they are not comfortable with - whether it is ours or anyone else's. They should have complete confidence in the platform because they are relying on it to provide the services that are promised.

As an aside, Enron's auditor was Arthur Andersen

Gold has been at 1200++ level for so so long

XAU/RM is currently around RM5351 (as at 26 June 2017). It was at RM5,152 at the beginning of the year. so year-to-date is around 3.9%.

Gold is an asset that increases around the rate of local inflation over the long run. It is probably one of most accessible assets to hedge against local inflation and local currency risk.

I believe that gold is performing in line with long run expectations which is good - rather than bad. Why? Because investors can take risks and make money in other assets. But they all need an asset that will act as a hedge or safe haven - that asset is gold for many of us

Does this mean that if u choose 10KG gold bar then u can offer more lower cost to user?

Yes. As we are able to enjoy better pricing through the bulk purchase of 10kg, 20kg, 30kg worth of gold, we plan to lower the costs to our customers

When do you foresee this happening?

I think most of us wish that the fees doesn't look too punishing. If you could, please consider lowering the admin fees, or include extra benefits. The link with AEON for loan does not really appeal to those genuinely having extra money to spare to buy gold. As I see it, iIf they could buy gold, there's no reason to get a loan.

Does that top up fees (RM1.20) is for any amount deposited?

I would like to be in a position to lower fees in 2/3 years time

The top up fee is fixed for any amount

Regarding the loan product, our market survey has shown that this will be a popular product. Our customer see gold as a long term savings plan, and they don't want to sell their holdings. But they like the option of having a credit facility for emergency situation. It is as if you can get emergency cash against your pension fund - it is a useful feature because you wouldn't want to sell the shares in your pension portfolio

Dunno if this is the Geneva ver2?