New Singapore Precious Metals Exchange

[greg9840]

This appears to be brand new.  They claim to be the world's first physical precious metals exchange. 
http://www.sgpmx.com/
Singapore is supposedly very insulated from the West, so this may be much safer than Gold Money and BullionVault in a SHTF scenario.  The fees are reasonable at 0.25% to buy and sell, with a 0.5% annual storage fee.  Plus, their storage is fully allocated/segregated, meaning you own particular pieces of gold, not a percentage of a gold pool.  Some people believe that allocated storage counts as "direct ownership" which means you do not have to report the holding to the IRS, but there is not a consensus on this among CPAs.  Could this be the best/safest third party gold storage solution out there?  The article below says that Jim Rogers buys gold on this exchange.
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/bus ... 33258.html

[sophie]

It looks good, but it would be nice to hear more about it before plunging in.  For one thing, I don't know how they can manage such razor-thin profit margins when they are acting as go-between for sources such as the Perth Mint - which charges higher fees.

I also didn't see a lot of specifics on their FAQ or info pages on how their gold is insured and stored.

[greg9840]

It's not clear how this works regarding the 0.25% trading fee.  The website has limited information, so I am not sure if they mean 0.25% above spot price, or if they mean 0.25% above the price the mint charges.
One thing I like about this exchange is that they use Certis Cisco for the vault storage.  Certis Cisco is based in Singapore and I don't think they have any operations in the US.  Contrast that with Brinks storage in Singapore, where Brinks is a US based company that surely will do whatever the US government says, no questions asked.  I don't think Certis Cisco will take orders from anyone other than the government of Singpapore. 

[LazyInvestor]

Any new experiences about this gold buying option?

[Hal]

I have used SGPMX to store PM's (not trade) and have had no problems.  You receive a holding statement from their storage facility and pay a storage fee annually.  Have found them very prompt in answering queries, so I have no complaints.  Since they are quite new, I would suggest only trying them out with small holdings.

Could always try GoldMoney as well, however you can only pick up directly from their vaults in Switzerland.

Just my 2cents worth...

Hal