Bullionvault Review: Is it Safe? [Pros + Cons & Fees]

Bullionvault is the biggest online gold dealer available.

In this Bullionvault Review you’l read all you need to know before buying gold with them.

I’ll also try to find out if this is a safe and legit platform.

BullionVault’s online reviews are good, so I thought I’d find out why. I myself have been trying to understand where to invest in gold online beyond ETFs.

Can I buy and sell physical gold safely and cheaply?

Let’s dive into this..

Before we go deeper into my experience with Bullion Vault you need to understand what are the benefits of investing in physical gold and why I consider doing so online.

On Bullion Vault I find gold bars and coins, but also silver at wholesale prices.

Bullionvault is considered safe and highly rated by its customers. However this is not the only way to buy gold online, there are other websites such as BullionStar, GoldMoney, GoldRepublic, Kitco, BullionByPost, Goldirect and others.

To invest and store gold, Bullion Vault is the best option in my opinion. I am looking for a safe, legitimate and easy way to buy and store precious metals online. Here is my customer review.

Never forget that the best way to invest long term is to use ETFs, not only gold. The easiest way to do it is through a roboadvisor like Moneyfarm (review) ot similar tools.

BullionVault is one of the largest and most popular gold and precious metal dealers since 2015. Bullionvault holds about €2 billion worth of physical gold and silver. The owners of this gold and silver are 85,000 customers worldwide.

The company allows private customers to buy, sell, store and trade gold, silver and platinum at reasonable costs.

Since 2008 BullionVault has been a member of the London Bullion Market Association.

What does Bullionvault do?

BullionVault allows individuals to buy, hold and sell gold, silver and physical platinum.

There are also gold and silver coins available besides bars.

What problem does it solve?

Investing and holding physical gold (and precious metals in general) has always been very expensive or dangerous.

Having a safe deposit box for rent is not for everyone and can be expensive.

The costs of storing gold and silver often outweigh the potential benefits, especially if we are dealing with small amounts of metal.

Bullionvault main advantage for users is that they can safely store gold, silver and platinum at a reasonable price.

When I say reasonable I mean starting from only 4 USD per month (gold).

Where does Bullionvault keep my gold?

This company has several physical locations with vaults in 5 countries.

Here is the list of the physical locations form my gold I can choose from:

• London (UK)
• New York (USA)
• Toronto (Canada)
• Singapore
• Zurich (Switzerland)

Gold, Silver and platinum are offered in different ways. Coins are normally more expensive compared to bars.

• Gold Bars
• Gold Coins
• Silver Bars
• Silver Coins
• Platinum Bars
• Platinum Coins

The minimum purchase is 1 gram of any metal.

The minimum purity of the bars for sale on Bullion Vault is:

• 99.5% for gold bars
• 99.9% for silver
• 99.95% for platinum

Each ingot has its own “passport” which shows its history, the name of the person who refined it and all the movements it has made in its life.

There is not white gold available on Bullionvault.

Curiosity..What colour is platinum?

Bullion Vault main purpose is not only to allow the purchase of gold and silver.

The biggest deal for me is to have the chance to have cheap and safe storage for my gold.

Bullionvault also provides an Automatic Gold Investment Plan

This service allows clients to buy gold at regular times at the daily London price.  The only effort needed is to transfer money into the account and the money will be used to purchase gold automatically. This is a hands-free gold investing strategy because investors are not required to place any orders or active trades.

Bullionvault has a Youtube video channel with video tutorials especially on metal trading.

Here is the most popular video, it is called “How to buy gold bullion the safer, cheaper & easier way”.

It this Bullion Vault video it is shown how to trade metals on their platform:

 Investing is beautiful, necessary, but it cannot be considered safe.

For example, I do invest on P2P lending platforms, I make profit, but I can’t consider it a safe investment.

This is what life looks like inside a vault:

Storing gold through online vaults

Having gold and silver stored remotely is very safe in this case.

The vaults are among the most impregnable in the world, and all bars and coins are logically insured.

The buyer can freely decide where he wants his ingot to be stored.

Investors from Europe could prefer New York or Singapore, but also Zurich and London, if they like the idea of going and personally get their physical gold to bring it home one day.

If I change my mind one day, I can have the ingot transferred to a country that offers me more guarantees.

Online safety of gold marketplace

The Bullionvault website is one of the safest and most secure in the world. They also have an app but it’s pretty useless for non-traders.

I Bullionvault offline today?

It cannot happen.

BullionVault’s website uptime over the last 3 years at 99.9%

Gold cannot get stolen by a computer hacker, because the transfer of the corresponding value is only permitted towards your bank account and not any other entity. So even if someone would steal your passwords and access your private area, the only thing they could do is sell the metal but not cash out. The only cash out allowed is toward your bank account.

An additional layer of security comes from the fact that governments cannot easily confiscate gold held abroad. Gold held in the bank in the home country, in most cases remains easily accessible to creditors and tax authorities.

What’s in Bullionvault’s caveau?

• 40 tons of gold
• 900 tons of silver

This is an enormous amount, greater than what’s held by many individual states.

Should we fear an “Italian job movie” scenario?

In the 2003 movie, some American safecrackers from the US try to steal 35 million dollars worth of gold bullions in Venice, Italy.

All the gold and silver stored by Bullionvault is insured at all levels.

Is BullionVault Legit?

Yes, Bullionvault is a legitimate company and to buy and possess gold and silver is legit in all the countries I know.

Bullionvault is owned by Galmarley LTD

Brook House 4th Floor 229 Shepherds Bush Road London, W6 7AN United Kingdom

Here is the company in the UK register.

On the official website there is a video from inside the safe vaults:

Advantages of BullionVault in my opinion:

• It is one of the oldest and reliable websites in this area of business
• It’s one of the cheapest ways I’ve found to buy and store physical gold
• On request, they send me the gold home
• On request, I can move my gold elsewhere
• They offer both coins and ingots
• Offers a small buy/sell spread with a much lower price than in the bank
• Insurance covers everything
• They present 4 grams of silver to new subscribers
• No VAT on gold purchase

Some of the data on the above table is old, but VAT exemption is still true on most European counties (tax on precious metals Wikipedia). Some countries do charge VAT on silver.

BullionVault is not free, even though it is one of the cheapest and most liquid means of investing in gold.

Let’s analyze the cost of using Bullionvault.

What is free on Bullionvault:

• Register is free
• Live price charts are free
• To fund the account is free
• To close the account is free

What are the costs of storing gold on Bullionvault?

These are the costs:

• 4 US dollars a month (or 0.12%) for insurance and vaulting of gold
• 0.48% per year on silver, billed monthly and subject to a monthly minimum of $8.
• 0.20 euro cents per SMS alarm

It’s equivalent to 48 USD per year to store up to 40k € of gold.

To activate the alarm via SMS not + mandatory. Basically, I receive an SMS every time a movement is made on my account.

Buying and selling fees:

To buy gold, silver and platinum the fee is at most 0.5% of the value.

Above 75,000 the fees go down up to 0,05%.

Bullionvault ‘minimum purchase’ is one gram.

Bank transfer cost:

• Wire transfer to Bullionvault costs zero.
• Wire transfer from Bullionvault to my bank costs $10

Example of gold storage costs:

• To get up to €40,000 worth of gold on Bullionvault I pay €48 a year.
• 100.000€ of gold stored I pay about 120€ per year.

This is possibly cheaper than keeping it in a good safe or in the bank and it eliminates the risk of theft.

Armoured gold transport

Armoured transport can be expensive.

It is USD 400 for pure transport + another USD 250 for the release of a 400 OZ gold bar from Zurich and London caveau.

How much does it cost if I want to pick up my gold in London?

The physical withdrawal of the metal is possible as an alternative to converting the equivalent value into euros.

So YES, I can have my gold bar and I can go to London to pick up my bar.

I pay a fee of about 2.5% for whole bars or 7.5% for smaller quantities.

The minimum release is 50 grams.

Having 100 grams of gold sent home in Europe costs about 165€.

Cost of closing the account

How to close Bullionvault account?

Closing the account is free.

To close the Bullionvault account simply I need to send an email to support staff.

The gold will be sold immediately and the money goes back into my account.

Fees on this tool are not high, so that to trade gold for profit you don’t have to buy Gold at Equator and sell it in Alaska…

Harry Browne many years ago established that a perpetual portfolio is divided in this way:

• 25% gold
• 25% Bonds
• 25% Cash
• 25% Shares

This is a very conservative structure but it is supposed to perform theoretically quite very well in the long term delivering low volatility.

The 25% of gold in the portfolio, in my opinion, is only for those who are close to retirement and only look for the best way to protect the money they already have.

For those with a low-risk profile, some gold is generally the right choice.

It is well known that those who invest in gold and precious metals also do so to safeguard their assets as well as to invest.

Without security, none of this would make sense.

The serenity of investing in gold online is above all given by the fact that I don’t have to keep it at home.

If I keep too much gold in my safe, I know it could get stoled. The same cannot happen online with Bullionvault because I’m insured.

Bullionvault spends significant sums of money to ensure that its website is impregnable and that its vaults remain unavailable to thieves.

A service like this could come in handy if I don’t want to keep too much money tied up in my account and suffer inflation.

Investing in gold fits perfectly into a long-term investment strategy and in more complex do-it-yourself investing strategies.

If I don’t know where to start, the best way to invest is through a Roboadvisor like MoneyFarm.

I am not a tax consultant but I have gathered some preliminary information on this issue. Taxation is a complex matter and it is always better to consult a professional before making decisions.

Don’t trust me and do your research.

You don’t pay VAT on gold in most European counties and almost anywhere in the world.
I don’t pay tax on gold until I resell it and make a profit.

If I buy gold and sell it at a lower price I do not pay taxes, on the contrary, I keep the capital loss for 4 years. So if within 4 years I make a profit with other compatible investments I can recover from the capital loss made with the gold (this does not apply to all counties).

How do I report taxes on gold?

Every country is different. I was not able to collect information from all counties so I gave up.

One truth:

Until the day I sell, I don’t have to pay taxes in most cases.

Then let’s buy some gold.

Bullionvault’s head office and address is in London Hammersmith:

Galmarley Ltd building
3 Shortlands (7th Floor),
Hammersmith,
London,
W6 8DA,
UNITED KINGDOM

Visitors are welcome.

This building in London is the headquarters of Bullionvault. The safe vaults are distributed in 5 countries.

With this article, I do not recommend investing in gold either with Bullionvault or in any other way.

I only report my experience with Bullionvault and give my opinion on the pros and cons.

I also invest in:

• Peer to Peer lending
• Real estate Crowdfunding
• DCA
• Stocks
• ETFs
• ETCs

..and much more, so I was missing physical gold.

I tried it because I’m attracted to the possibility of diversifying intelligently with very low tax and fees.

I like the possibility of investing in gold safely and securely, without having to worry about having to store precious metals in my house.

On the other hand, a good slice of my assets are digital, so the “perfect middle ground” that Bullionvault offers me fits my diversification needs.

Bullionvault is very focused also on actively trading precious metals, but I haven’t tried it out yet.

It offers the latest gold and silver charts and fresh insider information not only on the price of gold but o everything related to metals.

On their Youtube channel, I found some good information on how to trade gold in English. Alternatively, there are guides to trading gold and silver on the Bullion Vault itself.

Bullionvault gold price:

This gold chart above is how gold (in euros) has been performing in last 20 years. Since 2000 it has increased almost fivefold.

Bullionvault official website

Trustpilot is a popular online review site and Bullionvault has many reviews.

Most Bullionvault reviews are in English and the average level of satisfaction is 95%.

So 95% of Bullionvault’s customers (about 85,000 worldwide) are either satisfied or very satisfied.

Opinions on Trustpilot, like everything else, should be taken with a grain of salt because they come from average customers, not specialists who have tested more tools.

There is no doubt that Bullionvault is not a scam or fraud.

It is doing its job since 2005 and the volume of business and profits are on the rise.

It has existed for many years, the founder is a real person and the gold they hold is  real, not “paper gold”.

Few companies can flaunt so much “underlying” value. I mean, there is nothing better than gold as collateral, not even real estate.

Bullionvault does not deal unallocated gold. Each customer is matched with an existing portion of physical gold and this is located in the country you have chosen.

Bullionvault negative reviews and experiences

Negative reviews of who is a customer must be respected.

Negative opinions of people that “would never invest in gold” or “online”, are meaningless.

Well, I did something for you.

I read all the negative opinions I’ve found online about Bullion vault. The main reasons for complaint or bad experience are these:

A few customers complain about Bullion Vault because they did not understand that even if it is free to sign up, after buying gold you pay 4 USD per month (insurance and safekeeping).
One more reason to complain is that they want to use different bank accounts to operate (for safety’s sake it is not allowed).
Other complaints are about the missed chance to cash in the 4 grams of silver Bullionvault gives an as welcome gift.

I tell you what I like about Bullionvault negative experiences:

They respond to all reviews, especially the negative ones.

My experience with customer service so far is very good.

Bullionvault app

Bullionvault has aloes an App for smartphone. It is designed for the most active gold and silver trader. An average long term investor will hardly benefit from it.

I have it but I am not using it much.

Bullion Vault and Brexit

The impact of Brexit on their business is marginal since they are an international company.

I believe European investors will be even more attracted by holding gold in a close and safe company based in the UK.

Paul Tustain is the funder and the main owner:

Here is a recent article about the funder of Bullionvault Paul Tustain

And here he is on Linkedin.

ETF and ETCs are a very fast, liquid and efficient way to invest in gold and precious metals.

The problem is that in most cases investing in these tools does not give me any claim  on the underlying gold.

It may be a pointless worry or maybe not.

I will keep holding some gold and silver ETF/ETC but the allocated gold is very interesting.

The Financial Times wrote something about the issue some time ago.

The best charts live for gold and silver are on Bullionvault:

No, Uber-Gold is not here yet and I cannot order a gold delivery on Bullionvault as it was a pizza salami.

What I can do is to ask Bullionvault to release and deliver me my gold/silver.

Of course, it comes with a price.

It cost much less if I go in person to take it or if I ask an entire ingot instead of a portion.

100 grams (gold bars) are the most practical to do it.

Bullionvault official website

To store gold and silver humans have 3 options:

1. To store gold at home in a safe box
2. To store gold in a bank safe box
3. To store allocated gold remotely (insured)

The word “allocated” make the difference because with Bullionvault I don’t own “paper gold” but an allocated share of precious metal or an entire bar.

Mr Robert Kiyosaki is the author of the first books that opened my eyes to personal finance issues.

Many years after reading his book, even if he’s a little crazy in my opinion, I keep following him sporadically.

After all, he is still the author of “Rich Dad, Poor Dad”.

A few months ago he took an unusually strong stance on the advantages of investing in gold and even Bitcoin.

This made me think:

BullionVault or …

Bullionvault’s business model can be imitated, but if size matters then there’s no much competition out there.

There are a myriad of small “metal counter” services that allow you to buy physical and non-physical gold, but the costs are often inaccessible to a small independent investor.

Buying gold in bricks and mortar store can be a bad idea because I must totally trust the seller, and the price of used gold is a bargain … for those who sell it.

All I have to do to test the convenience of buying physical gold in a bank or in a gold-shop is this: Buy a gram of gold in a gold-shop (or bank) and then try to sell it back to them after a day.

Happy deal!

You are very likely to lose a lot of money since the spread in a a gold-shop will be huge.

Smaller alternatives to Bullionvault are Goldmoney, Goldstar and many more.

Many of these services don’t solve the gold storage problem (or do so at higher prices).

Cheapest gold online

Is Bullionvault selling the cheapest gold online?

Price is always changing but when I’ve made my last comparison yes, it was the cheapest and the fee is only 0,5% even on smaller quantities.

Bullionvault cost calculator review

They offer a simulator to know what is the price od buying, storage and selling in a given time frame.

I love it because it is the most transparent way to do business.

Have a look at the “cost calculator”:

The same can be done with platinum, silver, euros and other currencies.

Gold is the most popular precious commodity. It has been used as a currency and  it still is a symbol of power or wealth.

In short, everyone wants gold.

Here’s a list of reasons why it could make sense to invest in gold:

📌 Gold protects against uncertainty.

Gold retains its value not only in times of financial uncertainty but also in times of geopolitical uncertainty.  Investors look for gold especially when global tensions increase.

📌 Gold is a finite commodity.

It’s not easy to extract gold and it takes years to set up a mine. The reduction in supply can drive up the price of gold.

📌 Gold demand is increasing.

In past years, the rising wealth of emerging market economies has stimulated demand for gold.

📌 Investors want it

Demand for gold has also increased among fund and ETF investors.  The SPDR Gold Trust (gold) has become in just 4 years one of the largest ETFs in the United States.

📌 Diversification of investment portfolio

Diversifying means having investments that are not too interrelated. Having an asset that tends to increase in value during crises is crucial. Combining gold with equities and bonds in a portfolio serves to reduce overall volatility and risk.

📌 Protects against inflation

Gold has historically been an hedge tool against inflation because its price tends to rise when the cost of living increases.

📌 Maintains value

Unlike paper money, gold has retained its value over the centuries.

📌 You don’t pay VAT on gold (unbelievable but true).

In addition to not paying VAT, you do not pay taxes until you sell it for a capital gain.

Gold downsides

📌 Dividends

Gold is not a profitable company so it does not produce dividends nor more wealth.

📌 Hedging from the markets

Unfortunately, the gold price did not always go up when the markets were going down in the past.

📌 Is buying gold an active investment?

No, it isn’t. Buying gold can be a part of an investment strategy.

Online forums are gold mines of information, but curious investors can spend days on forum searching for an answer.

Unfortunately, forums are a very time-consuming place to search for answers.

Many forum contributors are extremely competent but they are buried under a ton of trash content written by non-experts.

Opinions on forums about Bullionvault and “gold as an investment” are polarized.

Even if I was not able to find anyone complaining about Bullionvault on forums, many are definitely against investing in what they call “paper gold”. They didn’t bother to check how it works and to find out the truth.

Here is a recent one from Resellerratings:

How Bullionvault works step-by-step:

1. I register with my real data and a valid email
2. I set a serious password
3. I accept the T&C
4. I go to my inbox and confirm

I am done.

Immediately after registration, I was credited with the 4 grams of silver (the Bullion Vault bonus):

I will pay absolutely nothing until the day I deposit more money to buy gold or silver.

To deposit I do this:

1. I head to the “deposit” button
2. Select where is my bank account
3. Select USD or EUR or GBP or other
4. Copy the data to make the bank transfer
5. I can print the data if I want to
6. I put my user name in the “reason for payment”

Note: the field “your name” is the username that I will enter as the reason for the transfer.

The minimum purchase is 1 gram.

Not only that.

I can also:

• Buy silver (less efficient for small quantities)
• Buy Platinum
• Buy gold coins (Britannia, Krugerrand, Maple leaf)
• Trading (best choice, low spread)
• Wait to resell after the price has gone up
• Setting up an Automatic Gold Investment Plan
• Buy gold to keep long term (good choice)

Very detailed information on how to make the most out of Bullionvault is on the website.

That’s why it’s very smart to sign up as long as it stays free, get a sneak peek and be ready to invest or trade gold.

To sum up, investing in gold makes sense especially if my goal is to protect against volatility and extreme events (which are quite frequent).

If I’m looking for a cheap but effective tool to keep my gold safe then I think BullionVault is one of the best choices.

If my need is to buy jewellery or bars of gold for delivery at home, there may be better options.

Now it’s your turn.

Do you store gold in your safe box?

Have you tried Bullionvault or similar platforms?

How was it?

Write in the comments your down Bullionvault review.