You can open a number of different types of accounts in a number of different currencies. With the exception of GoldSaver, all accounts allow you to buy, store, ship and sell gold coins and bars or Perth Mint Certificates.
You can have as many accounts as you like in as many currencies as you like.
Types of accounts are as follows:
We are obliged by law to identify our clients. This is a very simple exercise. U.S. clients will have to identify themselves by providing an official valid photographic identity card or passport and a utility bill from the last six months, with your full name and address displayed clearly.
When you receive your account opening pack via email, after you register online, you will be given clear instructions on what documents we will need.
You can scan and send the documents by email or post.
For the Perth Mint you will need to meet stricter requirements, please review the account pack sent to you after you register and open and account.
In order for you to buy gold or silver, we require your account to be funded.
You can deposit funds in most major currencies.
Your funds are always held in segregated client funds accounts so they are very safe. U.S. residents will have to wire their funds internationally to our client funds bank account. GoldCore is a long established and trusted company, so you can be assured your funds will be treated with the greatest of care.
You can also deposit with a credit card (some fees do apply).
You can choose between gold, silver and or platinum. You can invest in one or all three. Most investors choose gold as it tends to have a the best long term credentials when it comes to storing value and hedging against systemic risk. Silver is also very popular.
Those expecting a strong rally in precious metal markets tend to have an significant allocation to silver as many believe it is very much undervalued relative to gold.
You will need to decide which format of metal to own. For large long term investments we recommend 1-kilo gold bars held in dedicated storage accounts. You can store in a variety of formats and locations, including taking delivery. Call our office to discuss your options.
You have lots of options. Decide if you want to take delivery or have your gold and silver stored.
If you want to take delivery, you should opt for 1 oz bars and or coins; they are portable, easy to resell, impossible to forge, and inexpensive.
If you would rather have your valuables stored for the longer term, you can explore small and larger bars and coins. We offer state-of-the-art storage facilities in Asia, Australia, Switzerland and the UK. Many U.S. clients enjoy storing gold in foreign locations because they worry about the capacity for the U.S. government to confiscate gold and property.
You can also opt for the Perth Mint Certificate Program that will generally store your metal for free and enjoy a highly rated government guarantee.
Or you can do all three.
Placing an order could not be easier. American clients can log in on any device and buy securely on our dedicated trading platform. We offer highly competitive pricing on the most popular products.
You can buy or sell precious metal assets via our easy to use web trading platform.
Simply log in and follow the instructions.
You can also phone our super friendly sales support desk and they can take your order over the phone or guide you through the on-line purchase process. Please note that for now we are only open during Irish business hours (9am to 5pm GMT); we will be offering a full U.S. trading hour service very soon.
Geopolitical risk can refer to a number of threats and disruptions that alter the political and geopolitical climate, such as wars, border disputes, mass migrations, and trade and security disputes. These issues in turn can impact on global or regional trade, capital flows and the financial system in unpredictable ways and so lead to heightened uncertainty and less clarity about the future.
Geopolitical risk also encompasses oil and gas supply shocks, the rise in power of new economies, the risks from unexpected election results and power changes – especially within emerging economies, and even the waning power of multilateral institutions as individual countries engage in bilateral agreements and deals to the exclusion of existing international arrangements.
The U.S. has recently witnessed a geopolitical shock in the form of growing cooperation between Russia and China as regards energy security. In what is one of the largest deals of its kind ever, China and Russia have embarked on a multi-year natural gas agreement that serves as the basis for closer economic cooperation in other areas.
How this plays out for the U.S. economy’s continued dominance is unclear. But given that the gas deal is not priced in U.S. dollars, this will undoubtedly undermine the dominance of the U.S. dollar as the sole international reserve currency for global trade, and allow the Russian ruble and/or the Chinese yuan to gain usage. This would have negative but unpredictable consequences on the U.S. economy.
Geopolitical events can and do occur without warning and sometimes have devastating effects on seemingly unconnected economies due to an increasingly interdependence global economy. Geopolitical risks are also increasing in frequency, again due to increased global interdependence. When uncertainty rises, financial markets become stressed, and investors manage the heightened risk via a ‘flight to quality’ i.e. a move into real assets that are known to preserve purchasing power and that act as currency or inflation hedges.
Gold is one of the main beneficiaries of this flight to quality. Gold is a finite asset, and no one else’s liability; it has no counterparty risk and no default risk. Gold is universally accepted as a high quality asset when the value of other financial assets becomes questionable. These characteristics make gold the ultimate safe haven asset.
During periods of market turmoil the gold price tends to increase as other financial asset prices are falling. U.S. investors owning gold therefore provides wealth protection from geopolitical risk and a level of financial insurance from the system and its accompanying risks.
GoldCore has always maintained that U.S. investors should hold a properly diversified investment portfolio. This diversification should include a modest allocation to assets which protect portfolios in times of heightened market turmoil. Substantial academic and financial sector evidence exists to demonstrate that a modest portfolio allocation to gold bullion can greatly reduce the negative returns on portfolios of unexpected geopolitical events.
Monetary risk refers to a set of risks that may alter the existing monetary system.
In the U.S., the monetary system is made up of the Federal Reserve acting in consort with the U.S. commercial banks. U.S.’ commercial banks augment this money supply through fractional reserve banking and credit creation. The U.S. monetary system interacts with other economies and currency zones to create the international monetary system.
When external risks arise, such as geopolitical risk, systemic risk or macroeconomic risk, the Federal Reserve is forced to alter monetary policy, sometimes in extreme ways. This can have the effect of radically altering the monetary landscape that investors have previously taken for granted.
When the global financial crisis hit in 2008, central banks around the world feared that the international monetary system would collapse, so they coordinated on implementing monetary policy changes. These changes are still reverberating around the world today, because the problems were not fixed, merely postponed.
Since 2008, major monetary authorities such as the U.S. Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, the European Central Bank, and the Bank of Japan, have embarked on near zero interest rate policies, debasement of their currencies, and in some cases they have embarked on quantitative easing by buying their country’s treasury bonds. This affects U.S. savers who, instead of being rewarded for saving, are being penalised by the Fed for saving, due to the Fed’s negligible interest rates.
When the U.S. banking system was brought to the brink during the 2008-2009 banking crisis, there was a real risk that the U.S. monetary system could have collapsed. This was a severe monetary shock to the economy and one which was never envisaged for an economy with a banking system as strong as the U.S.
This massive increase in global money supply has created potential inflationary risks, since the rate of inflation is, in a lot of cases, above the rate of return available on bank deposits, and the expansion of the money supply has reduced the purchasing power of the dollar.
The increased money supply has also generated potential asset bubbles in the U.S. stock markets and a similar reoccurring bubble in the US property market.
Gold has been proven to be an inflation hedge and a hedge against the debasement in the value of paper currencies. As inflation rises, gold’s price also rises, and so it retains its purchasing power. Gold is a monetary asset that will help protect U.S. investors from monetary risks over the coming years.
Monetary risk also refers to a loss of confidence in the monetary system and the risk that the existing system will not be able to continue without overhaul or a global reset. There is growing consensus that the era of U.S. dollar as the primary international trade and settlement currency is nearly over, and that a future international monetary system will look significantly different. There is a growing view that a new international system may need to be backed by gold, since only gold can provide the confidence and stability that a new international system requires.
Gold bullion has long been held by investors seeking protect their wealth from the risks posed by systemic events.
Systemic risk refers to the possibility that the entire financial system could become unstable and potentially collapse. Normally a financial system is stable, and does not transmit shocks through the financial sector or into the wider economy. However, on occasion, the failure or potential failure of a financial firm or institution may create a domino effect and impact the health of similar firms.
Often, if investment or financing problems are perceived at a bank, the broader marketplace will not want to lend to that bank; perceived problems become real problems. If certain assets or investments in one bank become problematic, this can affect the value of similar assets at other banks. This is called financial contagion and can also be responsible for transmitting systemic risk.
These concepts are best illustrated by the subprime crisis events of 2007 and 2008 which most famously led to the collapse of U.S. investment bank Lehman brothers in September 2008.
In mid-2007, Bear Stearns, another U.S. investment bank, experienced large losses on investments tied to U.S. subprime mortgages. The market perceived that Bear Stearns had made even bigger loses, and its share price dropped and its debt financing rates went up.
The U.S. Federal Reserve eventually stepped in during March 2008 and organised the sales of Bear Stearns to JP Morgan, believing that if Bear Stearns had gone bankrupt it would have created systemic risk in world financial markets. The market then began to believe that Lehman Brothers, being involved in the same ‘toxic debt’ subprime mortgage market, was experiencing similar losses. Lehman clients became leaving the firm, and the market started to write down the value of Lehman’s assets. It’s share price plummeted and it became impossible for the firm to raise equity or debt capital.
No other financial firm wanted to buy Lehman and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York steeped in to organise its bankruptcy. Lehman filed for bankruptcy on Monday 15th September 2008. This caused panic in the world’s financial markets due to the exposure of other banks to Lehman’s liabilities. A number of U.S. investment banks nearly collapsed. Bank of America was forced into buying Merrill Lynch. Additionally, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs had to convert from brokerages to bank holding companies in order to qualify for government rescue funds.
On a wider scale, banks around the world stopped lending to each other and wholesale money markets froze up, creating liquidity problems. Central banks around the world had to flood the markets with emergency financing and take low quality assets as collateral in return to providing financing to banks.
The domestic bank rescues efforts culminated in the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) which was launched in October 2008 by the Government and aimed to invest in and buy troubled assets from U.S. financial institutions to the tune of $700 billion.
The gold price rose strongly before and during this crisis. Before the crisis broke, the gold price was bid up by the market in anticipation that these systemic risks were coming to the fore. During the crisis in late 2008, the gold price performed well as it was correctly seen as a safe haven asset that would provide shelter from the market turmoil.
For an investor, macroeconomic or macro risk refers to unexpected changes in the value of their assets due to shocks to real economic growth. This essentially means shocks from downturns in the business or economic cycle – in other words, recessions – or in extreme cases, depressions. Since the global economy is interdependent, shocks to economic growth in the major industrialised economies tend to be the most concerning, however, with the rise of emerging powers such as the BRICS, macro risk can also come from emerging economies.
The factors that create macro risk for investors include real economy variables such as the unemployment rate, the health of the construction industry and industrial production, and also monetary variables such as interest rates and exchange rates. Macro risk factors can even include commodity price shocks such as oil or gold price changes.
In turn, these economic shocks can exist in the presence of inflationary shocks, and could lead to a recession accompanied by deflation, or high inflation, or even hyperinflation, or less likely but possible, a stagnant economy with high inflation, known as stagflation.
The Federal reserve has been purusing an extremely accommodating monetary policy in the last 6 years with near zero interest rates and more recently continued rounds of quantitative easing where the Fed is buying U.S. Treasury bonds. It is inevitable that this interest rate policy needs to normalize relatively soon. Markets appear to believe that the Fed can gradually reduce quantitative easing without any side effects and also gradually begin to tighten monetary policy (raise interest rates) when and if the economic rebound strengthens. But the Fed has fundamentally distorted asset prices and risk signals from its severe meddling in financial markets.
One of the biggest macro risks currently facing the U.S. economy, however, is how to withdraw the central bank’s interventions in the economy without stifling economic growth and upsetting the stock and bond markets that have essentially become addicted to the Fed’s continued easy money policies.
If an external event hits the U.S. economy, such as a slowdown in China’s economy or regional instability with Russia, then the U.S.’ economic growth may have to face both the withdrawal symptoms of the Fed’s normalization of monetary policy and the unexpected effects of international macro shocks.
Ultra safe storage locations: Zurich, Singapore, Hong Kong, London, Perth.
GoldCore only offers segregated allocated storage. This means that you own specific bars and coins in a specific location. You do not part own a bar with other customers.
Over the past 10 years, GoldCore has assisted U.S. clients with the purchase and storage of allocated gold bullion. In that time we have built a global network of storage, logistics and insurance partners that work with us in safeguarding the gold bullion stored on behalf of our clients.
We have chosen to develop a global secure storage solution since international storage should be seen as part of a prudent geopolitical diversification strategy. Although many central banks around the world use the Federal Reserve vaults in New York for the long term storage of their countries’ gold reserves, unfortunately, gold accounts at the Fed are only available to central banks and national monetary authorities.
While GoldCore offer secure precious metal storage in the U.S., most of GoldCore’s vaulting facilities are located internationally, which could help mitigate any potential future risk that clients’ bullion could be impacted by confiscation risks.
Some of our partner vaulting facilities are located in some of the safest locations globally including Switzerland and Singapore. In a similar way that the safest banks in the world are currently in Switzerland, Singapore and Australia, the safest precious metals vaulting facilities are also in these locations.
This is not a coincidence because the economies of these countries are strong, they are politically stable and independent, and they have built up global reputations for financial property rights, confidentiality, and discretion.
For first time buyers of gold bullion or even those looking to select a new storage partner, there are a number of key benefits which differentiate GoldCore.
GoldCore charges an annual storage fees from 0.49% to 1% per annum for client gold stored with GoldCore’s vaulting partners Via Mat and Brink’s. Storage fees of less than 1% are available for larger values of bullion stored.
Storage charges are calculated and accrued daily based on a daily valuation of the client’s gold holding, and then billed six months in arrears at the end of each April and October.
A daily billing calculation means that the storage fee is accurately applied to the changing value of the gold, and reflects the changing gold price over the billing period. This calculation approach prevents large movements in the gold price affecting the bi-annual storage fee, which could occur if the fee was calculated based on just one day’s price.
When a U.S. client buys physical gold from GoldCore, the initial purchase price does not include a storage fee. Therefore the client defers payment on storage until the first invoice date, which could be up to six months later. For example, if a client buys gold in the first week of May, they only get billed for their first storage fee nearly six months later at the end of October, and so (the client) avoids an upfront storage fee at the time of purchase.
The second most important decision a U.S. buyer faces is how to store their gold. The first is the actual decision to purchase gold. Ideally, a U.S. gold bullion buyers or investors should diversify across storage locations to minimise event risks such as theft, government confiscation, terrorism, war and natural disasters that might affect one location.
This may mean keeping a small quantity of gold at home or in a readily accessible location, while storing the majority of your gold bullion holding in a secure international precious metals storage facility or vault, preferably in a financially stable and politically stable jurisdiction. GoldCore has partnered with Viamat and Brinks, world leaders in precious and valuable storage solutions, to provide fully insured storage services to our US clients across a number of international jurisdictions in Switzerland, Singapore, the UK, the U.S. and Hong Kong.
Direct ownership of gold means owning actual individual gold bullion coins and/or bars either in your possession or in allocated, segregated and fully insured accounts that you can access easily and quickly take delivery of your gold bullion from.
There is no counterparty risk with direct ownership since the gold bullion is the legal property of you the investor, and should the provider go out of business this does not impact your ownership of, or your access to the gold bullion.
By having direct ownership of physical coins and bars you can sell your bullion back to any number of international bullion dealers. This reduces your dependence on one single provider and also means that you are not dependent on an online digital bullion platform where the gold has to be sold back within that platform.
All client precious metal (gold, silver, platinum and palladium) stored by GoldCore at storage facilities in Zurich, Hong Kong, Singapore and London is audited via a tri-party auditing procedure. On a daily basis, GoldCore Operations will reconcile client precious metal storage records against the vaulting facility records of the storage provider. If discrepancies are found in the records, these are fully investigated and quickly resolved.
On a semi-annual basis, GoldCore directs independent auditor Inspectorate International Limited to audit GoldCore client precious metal inventory stored at storage facilities. This involves a physical inventory of all metal records and an audit of the weights of a sample of the precious metals holdings. Discrepancies, if found, are brought to the attention of GoldCore and the storage provider and investigated and quickly corrected.
US based Inspectorate International, part of the global Bureau Veritas group, is one of the supervisors of the LBMA good delivery system and is an associate member of the LBMA.
The Perth Mint undertakes full quarterly inventory stocktakes using both internal and external auditors from major accounting firms in Australia. The audits are reviewed by the Auditor General of the State of Western Australia who is answerable to the State Parliament.
Clients with precious metals storage accounts at GoldCore enjoy full transparency and accessibility over their holdings. Customers using Viamat’s storage vaults in Zurich, Hong Kong or London can log on to the Viamat International web site and view their holdings via a web based inventory reporting application.
The level of detail provided is thorough, including client account number, item description for bars or coins, quantity held, gross weight, fineness, item value in USD, and bar brand (for bars).
In addition, all GoldCore metals storage clients have online access via GoldCore’s website to view their holdings and balances.
GoldCore clients with allocated precious metals stored at GoldCore’s partner vaults internationally and at the Perth Mint are also able to visit the storage facilities to view their holdings. For security reasons, all visits need to be requested and sanctioned in advance.
If the need arises, customers can also take delivery and possession of their bullion from the storage vault. In these cases, GoldCore will arrange for insured delivery of the customer’s bullion via one of the following specialised logistics companies that we use: FedEx, UPS, Brinks or G4S.
Sourcing precious metals requires specialised knowledge and experience, so it is essential to find a firm that can answer your questions and is not only trying to close a sale. When it comes to investing in precious metals, there are a wide variety of options to choose. From ETFs, to electronic gold, to physically held gold. Most of these may be quite unsuitable for long term investors, but with our expertise in finding the right product, on the right terms and at a fair price, is what makes us different.
We are trusted by governments, pension funds, large corporates and private investors in over 45 countries, to do just that – deliver the solution that fits your needs. We are experts in finding that product, shipping it out safely and if needed, storing it for you too in fully insured secure vaults.
Investors in the U.S. have long associated GoldCore with excellence when it comes to the sourcing, storing and shipping of their precious metal investing needs. GoldCore has over 10 years of experience delivering gold and silver investments to investors.
We focus on three key areas to deliver the highest quality experience for our customers:
GoldCore proudly serve over 3,500 clients in more than 45 countries. Since we were founded, we have established an international reputation and today have business partner status with many of the world’s mints and storage companies.
At GoldCore we believe in protecting, to the very best of our ability, the assets and wealth of our clients in the U.S. and across the globe. We do this through the provision of precious metal services of the highest international standard.
We foster and encourage, both within the business and with our partners, the pursuit of efficiency and the ideal of excellence through continuous innovation. This approach, we believe, is the correct one to offer the levels of service required to maintain the business and protect our client’s wealth well into the future.
Finally, GoldCore believe in striving to do good, providing value and reaching the highest possible ethical standards for the benefit of ourselves, our employees, our clients, and our communities.
We deal with a huge range of clients, from large corporates to small private investors. From the CEOs of banks to young executives buying their first gold bar or coin. They are as different as they are alike. Our clients are what make our job interesting.
We love debating with our clients, asking their opinion, what motivates them, why they think the way they do. We believe that by interacting with our clients and learning all about their motivations, we keep in touch with our core market and at the same time validate our work and our products.
Our clients are almost universally positive towards us, how we conduct ourselves, and how we keep our promises. Yes, we are human, so on rare occasions we do slip up, but we find that if we keep our clients informed and work hard to rectify the situation, our clients are almost always satisfied.
We are asked who are clients are all the time. In truth, they tend to be open and independently minded, well-travelled and well-read, curious and passionate. They tend not to be “followers” but rather reserved and cautious.
GoldCore was founded in 2003 when gold was trading at just $240 an ounce. Our first office was in Dublin’s Fitzwilliam Square in Ireland.
Stephen’s Story
I have worked here at GoldCore for nearly 10 years, and I love it. Officially my job is CEO, unofficially my job is to make sure everything runs smoothly so we make good on our promises to our clients; to provide the very best service, advice and know-how.
Day-to-day I work with select clients who ask for me by name, strategic partners on new ways to win business, and I also fill in wherever I am needed – no job is too small. I am really proud of GoldCore’s team of client-orientated professionals – they are tops and our public client reviews really bear this out. My professional background started with my degree in Business from Portobello Business College and then I held a variety of financial and trading posts in New York, most recently from Goldman Sachs were I worked as a Sales Trader in Equity Derivatives.
I am married to the beautiful Paula and we have three young boys and yes, they are a handful! We live in the Dublin Mountains in a rural setting and we own two very productive chickens and a lazy cat. I love mountain walking and biking, current affairs, history, everything IT and a really good movie. I love getting away to far-flung places and I am planning an epic trip with my boys across South America, (my wife has not quite committed to this idea, but I am working on her!)
Mark’s Story
I founded GoldCore more than 10 years ago and it has been my passion and a huge part of my life ever since. I strongly believe that due to the significant macroeconomic and geopolitical risks of today, saving and investing a portion of one’s wealth in gold bullion is both wise and prudent. I have been an Executive Director in GoldCore since its foundation and today I am Research Director. As our customer base grew both domestically and internationally we were receiving a steady stream of requests from our clients and wider public for detailed analysis of the precious metals market. To meet this demand, I stepped into the Research Director’s role and am responsible for helping to inform and educate our clients and followers on how to protect and grow their wealth through owning gold and silver bullion.
I have a B.A. in History and Greek and Roman Civilisation from University College Dublin and this gives me an insight and a prism with which to view today’s turbulent world. I contribute to media internationally and take part in the Reuters, CNBC and Bloomberg gold and precious metal surveys. I am proud of the fact that we are now acknowledged experts on precious metals and our research is respected as informative and enlightening. We correctly warned about mortgage and debt bubbles in Ireland, the UK and the U.S. in 2005 and 2006 prior to the bubbles bursting.
Today, I am concerned that we have not learnt our lessons and we are repeating the same mistakes as before and there will be similar negative consequences.
