What are the Retail Gold Investment Principles (RGIPs)?

What are the Retail Gold Investment Principles (RGIPs)… and more importantly, how does it impact investors?

Retail Gold is global — with private investors holding approximately 45,000 tonnes of Gold in bars and coins (that’s around 22% of all the Gold mined throughout history). In fact, bar and coin demand accounts for 25% of annual global Gold demand — representing over 1,000t of retail Gold investment each year. But, beyond bars, coins, and collectibles, Gold ownership has long transcended the need for physical storage. As technology continues to pervade many aspects in our modern lifestyles, investors have also now begun to own Gold in digital formats vaulted on investor’s behalf and operated via mobile apps and websites.

Although retail Gold markets generally operate under local regulation in different jurisdictions, more initiatives were mooted on ways to enhance transparency and build further trust in the retail Gold marketplace. Subsequently, after conducting in-depth research globally, the World Gold Council developed the Retail Gold Investment Principles (RGIPs) as a set of guidelines to steer deeper trust and build relationship between Gold investors and their service providers for a sustainable healthier retail Gold marketplace.

Determined to benefit both retail investors and industry practitioners, the RGIPs was first established by The World Gold Council in August 2020. A recommended checklist of seven listed principles form the basis of how service providers should operate and how investors can identify trustworthy providers fulfilling these guidelines in the diverse retail Gold market.

Since its release, the World Gold Council’s guides have made quite the global impact with adoption in key markets like Singapore, India, China, Germany and North America. Subsequently, the World Gold Council continues to advocate adherence to the Retail Gold Investment Principles by engaging providers and stakeholders worldwide.

These efforts include:

So this is just our first snippet of RGIPs and we hope that you have a better understanding of why this topic will feature regularly in our upcoming articles. We will be covering each principle area in the coming weeks so please stay tuned to our blog. Feel free to reach out to us at +65 62229703 or [email protected] if you have any feedback or comments to add. Meanwhile, stay safe.

#GSCxRGIPs

Reposted from Kim Gold