Paysera, having started trading physical gold at the end of September, which is unusual for fintech companies, in two months sold over EUR 1.4M worth of gold bars and coins.
Most buyers have not collected their precious metal and it remains in the storage facilities of the company.
“At first glance, electronic money and physical gold come from different worlds, but, thanks to technology, they can be brought together. We knew that some people would be interested in buying a time-tested asset like physical gold via our app. The trade was also facilitated by a period when people are inclined to look for ways of retaining the value of their money,” says Vytenis Morkūnas, CEO of the electronic money institution Paysera LT. “We have noticed that the majority of buyers are not Lithuanian, our domestic market buyers, but foreign nationals, and this once again shows that we are a well-known fintech player internationally.”
According to V. Morkūnas, even though gold buyers can collect their purchased gold coins and bars or have them delivered to their home, the majority of them keep their precious metals at the company’s storage facilities because it is safer this way and delivery abroad is too expensive when gold is bought in small quantities.
Via its mobile app, the company sells gold bars of the Swiss manufacturer Valcambi Suisse and also 1 troy ounce (31.1 g) gold coins of different prominent manufacturers: American Buffalo, Canadian Maple Leaf, Austrian Philharmonic, and Britannia.
The smallest gold bar offered by Paysera weighs 1 g. On Friday morning, its price was approximately EUR 62. The price of the largest gold bar by weight - 1 kilogram - was EUR 49.7K on Friday morning. At the same time, the price of gold coins started at EUR 1585.
“We know that 1 g and 2.5 g gold bars are given as gifts, thus, before the holiday season, their demand may increase,” predicts V. Morkūnas.
At the beginning of August, the price of gold on the exchanges reached its peak - USD 2070 per troy ounce. However, later it decreased, and on Friday morning the price of gold was USD 1811 (EUR 1517) per troy ounce.