Who is Silver Bullion?
Who is Silver Bullion? How trustworthy is Silver Bullion? What are their credentials? What are the pros and cons of using Silver Bullion? These are the top most questions when choosing a bullion dealer. We will try to address these questions here.
Silver Bullion is a bullion dealer founded in 2009 and headquartered in Singapore. The founder of Silver Bullion is Gregor Gregersen. Gregor is a German native. Gregor is now a naturalised Singaporean after renouncing his German citizenship. Prior to founding Silver Bullion, Gregor worked at Commerzbank in Singapore. Commerzbank is a leading international German commercial bank. You can view his Linkedin profile here (you will need to login to Linkedin).
Silver Bullion has two sites in Singapore. The Retail Office is located within Singapore’s auxiliary police building at Certis CISCO Centre 2 at 20 Jalan Afifi. The Vault is located at The Safe House at 6 Changi South Street 3.
Silver Bullion has a retail subsidiary in Malaysia called Silver Bullion Sdn Bhd which was founded in 2015. Silver Bullion Malaysia has offices in Kuala Lumpur, Johor and Penang. You can read more about their operations here.
Take Note: Silver Bullion in Singapore and Silver Bullion Malaysia are two separate legal entities.
At a Glance
Licensed Precious Metals Dealer
Silver Bullion is a licensed precious metals dealer in Singapore. In Singapore it is an offence to act or hold yourself out to be a regulated dealer without being registered or exempted. You must be registered before you commence any regulated dealing. Any person who holds out to be a regulated dealer without being registered or exempted may face criminal penalties of up to S$75,000 and/or up to 3 year’s imprisonment. The Ministry of Law is responsible for supervising precious metals dealers and regulating money lending and pawnbroking. You can find out more and access the List of Registered Dealers here.
Member of Singapore Bullion Market Association
Silver Bullion is a member of the Singapore Bullion Market Association (SBMA).
SBMA works to increase Singapore’s bullion activity across all industry subsectors including refining, trading, logistics, price discovery, custodian services and risk management. Some of their activities include engaging with policymakers on legislation relating to precious metals and supporting the launch of new standards, products or pricing mechanisms.
To be eligible for Local Associate Corporate membership, you must be a Qualifying Entity that has conducted business or traded gold in Singapore for at least 3 years and your membership application must be supported by at least three SBMA members.
You can find out more about SBMA eligibility criteria here
You can check the list of SBMA members here
Authorised Dealer of The Perth Mint
Silver Bullion is an authorised dealer of The Perth Mint.
The Perth Mint advises that the qualification criteria includes demonstrating sufficient financial strength, ability to commit to minimum purchase quantities, passing Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC) checks as well as sanctions and anti-bribery policies. The Perth Mint does also conduct regular checks of the Authorised Dealers. Dealing with an Authorised Dealer adds an extra level of safety for the buying public.
Award Winning Company
Silver Bullion won the coveted Enterprise 50 Award for the Top 50 most entrepeneurial private companies in Singapore in 2014. The Enterprise 50 Award is presented by Business Times and KPMG
Furthermore Silver Bullion asserts it has no debt and has sufficient resources to run the company for 10 years without any sales. Read more here
If you want to do more due diligence yourself, you can obtain information on the company for free from the Accounting and Regulatory Authority (“ACRA”) in Singapore. Find out how here
Transparent Pricing
Silver Bullion is one of the few bullion dealers that is up front and transparent about the price that they will sell and buy back from you at. When you search items on their web site, you can even search by Buy/Sell Spread to find items with the lowest spread.
In comparison to other bullion dealers, you may also find that they have among the lowest premiums and spreads. We found that their prices can be cheaper by 5-10% to other goldsmiths and bullion dealers. However the flipside to this is that there are typically minimum order quantities which may price you out if you have a limited budget. For example silver coins have a minimum order quantity of 20 units. Smaller bullion dealers may be able to service you better if you have a limited budget, but are also likely to charge higher premiums and spreads.
FYI: We have negotiated for members of this website to enjoy discounts from Silver Bullion and Silver Bullion Malaysia as a member benefit. Depending on market conditions the discount can be sizeable and as much as 1%.
Find out more about membership here.
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Storage on Physically Segregated Basis
Segregated Physical means that your metal is in your name and stored physically segregated from other customers’ metal. It is not mixed up with other customers’ metal. It can be easily retrieved and withdrawn by you. You do not need to wait days and weeks until metal is available in lower denominations for you to withdraw. In the case of Silver Bullion, your metal is stored physically segregated using parcels. Refer sample parcel pic below.
Each parcel contains the following critical information:
The ID number of the owner of the parcel (aka S.T.A.R. Owner ID)
How it was purchased (“Purchased through”)
Content (eg. number of bars, size of product, refinery of product)
Bullion Type (total weight and fineness)
Additionally you will be provided with a photograph of your parcel which will be clear enough for you to see the parcel number, and the refinery, fineness, weight and any serial numbers of your product. Ensure these match the parcel description and what you ordered.
As additional precaution, you can use the parcel information to self audit your parcels. You can do this by regularly auditing the parcel ownership list and checking that your parcels are listed
You may find cheaper storage options from other bullion dealers or mints, but these would not provide you storage on physically segregated basis. Cheaper options would entail allocated physical or unallocated. Here is quick explanation of the differences and risks:
Allocated Physical storage (aka Pooled Allocated Physical)
In this scenario you own legal title to a fraction of a large bar of metal together with other people. This reduces premiums and ownership cost. For example premium is 7% on a 1000 oz bar of Silver, compared to 16% on a 100 oz bar of Silver. Your share of the metal is pooled together with other people to buy a large bar. Some bullion dealers may allow you to withdraw the metal but you need to wait until smaller denominations of metal are available before you can withdraw.
Unallocated storage (aka Pooled Unallocated)
In this scenario you do not own legal title to the metal. The bullion dealer owns the legal title to the metal but owes you a legal obligation. If the bullion dealer goes bust, the bullion dealer cannot fulfil his obligation to you. You will not recover the value of your metal. Moreover it is likely that the bullion dealer has leased out your metal in order to earn an income from it. This exposes you to even more risks in case the lessee of the metal is not able to return the metal, or not within a timely manner.
Flat Rate Storage Fee
Silver Bullion charges storage fees as a fixed storage fee per troy ounce / year. This means that as the metal increases in value, the storage fee becomes a smaller and smaller percentage of your total metal value! And the fees are very competitive. Read more here
For comparison sake, the world’s largest Gold ETF (GLD) charges management fee of 0.40% and the world’s largest Silver ETF (SLV) charges management fee of 0.50%. And both of these ETFs have higher counter party risks and do not allow you to take physical delivery of your gold or silver.
Extra bonus for customers in Malaysia: customers who buy the metal and pay for storage in Singapore through Silver Bullion Malaysia are able to take delivery of their metal in Malaysia without having to go to Singapore! Contact Silver Bullion Malaysia directly if you want to know more about how to buy and store in Singapore but pay in MYR.
As a member benefit we are able to guide you through the process for a small administrative fee. Find out more about how to become a member here and the membership benefits.
24/7 Availability
Although Silver Bullion does have physical retail offices, most transactions are performed online through their website. Visits to the physical retail office are usually only to pick up metals which you have ordered.
The website is available 24/7 and prices are updated in real time according to changes in the market. Transactions via the website may even be done over weekends and public holidays. This means that you can time your purchases to get the best price and during periods when you have free time!
Insurance and Audit
Metal stored with Silver Bullion is insured at the highest level of insurance coverage – “Mysterious Disappearance”. Mysterious disappearance covers losses that cannot be otherwise explained and cannot be substantiated by police. You read more and also view the insurance certificate here
Metal stored with Silver Bullion is audited by independent auditors quarterly. The independent auditors are Bureau Veritas and the same auditors used by the London Bullion Market Association. You can read more here
Become a Member
Get discounts on Gold and Silver
Free for Limited Time Only
Tax Free and Safe Jurisdiction
Silver Bullion operates under the jurisdiction of Singapore. Singapore does not have capital gains taxes and Investment Precious Metals (IPM) are free of Goods and Services Tax (similar to VAT in Europe). Read more here .
Read which bullion coins are tax free here
Read which bullion bars are tax free here
Exclusive Singapore jurisdiction also protects you from any forced nationalisations. Silver Bullion also has an optional clause which you can activate whereby they will freeze your holdings and not accept remote orders to prevent re-patriation in a nationalisation event. You would have to fly to Singapore to unfreeze the metal.
Singapore is also considered a politically stable and financially prudent country. Read more here.
Multiple Payment Options
Silver Bullion accepts multiple currencies including SGD, USD, EUR, AUD, CAD, CHF GBP and HKD. Malaysian customers can transact in MYR as well as these currencies. You can also settle using cheques and international wires. Read more here.
Silver Bullion in Singapore does accept credit card payments. Credit card payments will attract surcharges and are not recommended.
Silver Bullion Malaysia does not accept credit card payments.
Unique Service Offering - Short Term Financing
Silver Bullion has a peer to peer lending platform whereby customers can borrow funds from other customers using their metal as collateral. Additionally if you have excess funds then you can lend funds at attractive interest rates. Read more here.
In Malaysia, Silver Bullion Malaysia has a collaboration that allows customers to pawn their silver to raise short term financing. Read more here.
Storage Options
Silver Bullion stores your metal in parcels. If you want to store your metal with them, you need to make sure you buy enough metal to make up a minimum parcel. The amount of metal you need to buy to make up a parcel depends on the metal and the product you want to store. For example:
The following products could be used to make up 1 gold parcel
1 bar of 100g Gold (Approx US$ 6k at US$ 1800/oz)
1 bar of 1kg Gold (Approx US$ 58k)
10 coins of 1 oz Gold Canadian Maple Leaf (Approx US$ 19k)
Read more here
The following products could be used to make up 1 silver parcel
1 bar of 1000 oz Silver (Approx US $ 30k at US$ 27/oz)
5 bars of 100 oz Silver (Approx US$ 16k)
5 bars of 1kg Silver (Approx US$ 5k)
500 coins of 1oz Silver Vienna Philharmonics (Approx US$ 17k)
Read more here
We provide some screenshots of the web pages which explain the amounts of product required to make up a parcel, and to show you what a parcel looks like. It can be confusing for new users. So good thing you have us to explain it to you clearly!
Bitcoin Payment
Silver Bullion can accept payment by bitcoin. However this is performed using a payment partner. Watch the video below to find out more.
Update: Silver Bullion now accepts up to USD 200k as payment using bitcoin, ethereum or litecoin. However take note there is a 4% processing fee and the payment needs to be made within 15 minutes. Read more here
International Shipping
Silver Bullion Malaysia is able to ship international. Find out more here
Overall Conclusion
Overall we find Silver Bullion a great full service bullion dealer with unique value added services. The value proposition is even greater if you are located in a country with high political risk. Additionally if you ever need to raise money quickly it is handy that they can help you arrange financing using your metal as collateral.
Using Silver Bullion and Silver Bullion Malaysia as your bullion dealer will be more attractive to the middle market and High Net Worth Individuals (HNWI) and Family Offices. This is because they have minimum order quantities which may price lower income earners out (eg. silver coins have minimum order quantity of 20). However even if your budget is limited it is worth checking them out as they do have very good deals regularly.
Become a Member
Get discounts on Gold and Silver
Free for Limited Time Only
