Gold bars manufactured in Hungary by Magyar Pénzverő and BÁV/Metalart (2004–2015).
After 2004, Metalart produced gold bars — typically 3-nines purity — on commission for Magyar Pénzverő and BÁV. These are no longer made, so they can only be found on the secondary market, and increasingly rarely at that. Their price tracks the world market price for gold or trades slightly below it. They are mostly bought by goldsmiths for jewellery production. It would be worth building a collection of these sometimes surprisingly beautiful gold products before they are melted down for good.
Answers to key questions about security, storage and portfolio building.
Let's return to the topic of security. What happens if the banking system collapses? Is there any deposit protection covering you?
Since we are not a financial institution, we are not part of the deposit protection scheme, so there is no OBA guarantee covering funds held with us. That said, we are careful to keep client funds at the best banks, in segregated accounts. In practice, clients rarely hold significant cash with us — only briefly while they are purchasing gold or other precious metals. And the precious metals themselves are fully insured.
To answer your question: if the current financial system were to collapse and take down part of the banking sector — specifically the banks that had taken on excessive risk — that would be a very unpleasant scenario. The assumption would be that governments no longer had the funds to bail out banks as they did in 2009–2011. In that case, depositors would be chasing their money and could hope for payouts from the deposit protection fund. Gold held at Goldtresor would not be directly affected by a chain of bank failures, because we store it in bank-independent vaults.
Is there a risk of getting "stuck"? Having a gold account balance but being unable to convert it back to cash or request physical gold bars or coins from Goldtresor?
Gold is one of the most liquid markets in the world. There is no risk of being unable to sell your gold bars. That is why Goldtresor continuously quotes a buyback price at which you can sell immediately during system opening hours and request a transfer back to your chosen currency.
To answer the second part of the question: gold products can be converted from one form to another by refineries, so gold account balances can also be "called out" in physical investment gold, provided the fine gold backing is available.
What if both the financial system and gold trading come to a halt?
A fair question, though I can only imagine the international SWIFT system — which handles bank transfers — collapsing in some truly enormous crisis. If that happened a few years from now, a blockchain-based real-time international transfer system developed by, say, Ripple Labs would likely already be in operation. If "only" the financial system goes down, that doesn't necessarily mean investment gold product manufacturing stops — a refinery can still convert large-format bars received as input into smaller formats in exchange for gold. Lead times would obviously increase. In any case, if someone converts their gold account balance into physical bars or coins during a "calm" period and stores them in custody at Goldtresor, they would have immediate access to them.
WHAT SIZE GOLD SHOULD INVESTORS BUY, AND WHERE SHOULD THEY STORE THEIR PRECIOUS METALS?
My usual recommendation is to try to keep a portion of your gold — say 30–50 grammes per person — close to you in small-denomination wafers or coins. The reason is that while the chance is small, a crisis situation could arise where gold becomes a street-level means of payment, as happened several times in the 20th century. Back then, a gold necklace link or a Louis gold coin was the answer if you needed to buy food or clothing.
Larger-format gold is for moving larger values, or for reinvesting capital after a crisis has passed. In normal economic conditions — as we have experienced in recent decades — gold preserves purchasing power and protects against inflation. My recommendation would therefore be to decide based on your capital resources. First try to accumulate at least 30–50 grammes of physical gold per person in small denominations; then invest the rest in larger-format gold or hold it in a gold account.
HOW CAN GOLD STORAGE RISK BE REDUCED?
Here too, the answer is to keep your assets in multiple places. Small-denomination "strategic" gold, for example, can be stored in a home safe and insured under your home insurance policy. For larger wafers, you can rent a bank safe deposit box, and of course it's also worth using Goldtresor's storage service. This way you achieve proper risk diversification.
HOW DO GOLDTRESOR AND THE GOLD ACCOUNT HELP YOU BUILD YOUR GOLD PORTFOLIO?
Gold balances accumulated on the gold account can be converted into, for example, bundles of ten 2g or 5g gold wafers or coins. This saves the per-unit delivery cost, and bundled purchases also earn you an additional 1–1.5% discount. Combined, this can add up to a 5–6% saving — meaning you end up with that much more gold. This makes it practical to build up the 30–50g "strategic" reserve.
If you have funds beyond that, I'd recommend building towards larger-format bars on the gold account — targeting at least 1-ounce, 50g or larger bar sizes, since their per-unit manufacturing cost is proportionally much lower.
Let's do the maths: the manufacturing cost of a 2g gold wafer is around 14% of the world gold price. So if a small investor can only afford 2g per month, they are about 11% better off by accumulating 50g on their gold account first and then redeeming the 2%-cost 50g wafer, rather than buying one 2g wafer every month for 25 months. In numbers: 14% manufacturing cost for a 2g wafer, minus 1% gold account purchase spread, minus 2% manufacturing cost for a 50g wafer = 11% saving. And that doesn't even count how much more efficient it is to request one delivery — or make one trip to a gold dealer — rather than 25.
So the Goldtresor system can be a great help in building and acquiring a gold portfolio cost-effectively.
GOLD PRESERVES THE PURCHASING POWER OF RETIREMENT SAVINGS
Self-provision. Regular saving. Two buzzwords being introduced into mainstream thinking. It's in the state's interest for people to start preparing for their inactive years in good time, rather than relying solely on their pension. You recommend the Bonus gold account for this. Tell us about the conditions and how it works.
Yes — the purchasing power of pensions will no longer be enough to maintain a decent standard of living. The introduction of parental support obligations gives us some idea of what to expect from the state in the future. I imagine nobody wants their children legally obligated to support them in old age. Regular gold savings can go a long way towards solving that.
That's why we created the Bonus account package — its essence is to encourage the saver to set aside at least a certain amount each month. We've introduced two incentives for this. The first is a visual motivator: we show how many more grammes the client needs to reach the next tier. There are ten tiers, and the sixth and seventh are still reachable for most people. The second incentive is that when the account is opened, we immediately credit 1 gramme of gold to the client's gold account. This becomes permanent after the account has been open for at least 36 months from the start of saving. Many clients set up some kind of automatic payment — for example, a fixed monthly amount on their bank account. This works with any currency (EUR, USD, HUF) and is popular because it's very convenient and makes it easy to calculate when you'll reach your goal. Here's one more reason to save a fixed amount per month: the gold price fluctuates somewhat. With a fixed amount, one month you get slightly more gold for your money, another month slightly less — and this averages out nicely.
I don't want to suggest this is a rigid, fixed-monthly-amount system at all. You can pay in more at any time, and you can also convert your gold account balance back to cash and request a transfer. We want to help the client progress in their savings programme, but the client has complete freedom. We're a bit like a personal trainer: we set the goal and give a gentle nudge, but ultimately it's all down to them.
What happens to the 1 gramme gift gold if someone can't keep the savings plan going for 3 years?
We don't apply any "penalty" — the client can close all their accounts and withdraw their gold. But if this happens within 3 years, the 1 gramme gift gold is returned to Goldtresor.
What are the recommended tiers on the Bonus gold account, and what can the client do once they reach their target tier?
The tiers are currently as follows: 1: 5g, 2: 10g, 3: 20g, 4: 1 troy ounce, 5: 50g, 6: 100g, 7: 250g, 8: 500g, 9: 1000g, 10: 12,500g.
We send a monthly progress update with current or useful information. When the client logs into the Goldtresor system, they immediately see "only X more grammes needed to reach the next tier." Most clients appreciate this — it makes the system feel a little more personal and encourages progress.
Once the client has reached their self-set tier, the most natural step is to convert the gold account balance into the gold bar that represents their target and take it home or request delivery. The client has complete freedom here too. They decide what size bars or coins to convert their savings into — or they can convert back to any currency and request a transfer.
