To begin enjoying the utility GoldMoney offers, which includes buying and selling gold and silver, you will first need to open an account. Accounts (an account at GoldMoney is called a "Holding") are free to open and there are no minimum balance requirements. To open a new Holding at GoldMoney, click the blue "free signup" button on our home page and follow the instructions.

After completing the registration process, you can add funds to your Holding and start buying and selling gold and silver anytime you want:

Your investment portfolio may already include significant holdings in precious metal ETFs, mining stocks, or even precious metals stored personally in a vault. In the event of a financial emergency, how will you quickly convert "paper gold" into currency, make payments with bullion not in your physical possession or easily convert a bullion bar so that it can be conveniently used as currency?

GoldMoney has established a patented currency, goldgrams® (1 goldgram = 1 gram of gold), to give customers the ability to make gold payments to each other electronically:

Thus, although our customers can send and receive funds to their GoldMoney account via traditional financial institutions, such as banks and brokerage companies, GoldMoney's utility is not entirely dependent upon the network of such institutions.

• Individuals who want to buy and hold gold and silver in the safest and most economical way possible
• Current holders of physical gold and silver coins or bars who want to improve the security of their home or bank-stored metals
• Trust & asset management companies that want to provide their customers with an allocated, custodial gold product, that is both cost-effective and free of credit risk
• Companies that want to include gold or silver currency as part of their cash management strategy
• Precious metals mining companies seeking to provide their shareholders with greater exposure to gold and silver
• Consumers and commercial companies using GoldMoney's patented gold currency to make domestic or international payments to other individuals, merchants and firms

When you purchase precious metals through your GoldMoney account, you actually hold and own the metal in your name. GoldMoney is not a "paper gold" product, which means that your gold ownership is not dependent upon the ETF's, certificate issuer's or pool account operator's ability to obtain and redeem metal for you when you want to sell it.

Nearly all of these types of "paper metal" programs work on a fractional reserve basis, so if the majority of the program's customer wanted to redeem their metal for cash, the program operator would not be able to meet all of its obligations. In other words, "paper metal" products represent merely a promise to pay metal; they are not products that give you direct ownership of metal, and therefore expose you to counterparty risk since you are dependent upon the program issuer's ability to meet all of its obligations.

Contrary to the fractional reserve nature of "paper metal" programs, the quantity of customer metals recorded in GoldMoney's database is always equal to the quantity of metals in the vaults. GoldMoney guarantees it.

• When you purchase precious metals through GoldMoney, the gold and silver bullion is stored securely at the VIA MAT vaults in London, England and Zurich, Switzerland. VIA MAT International is part of Mat Securitas Express AG, of Switzerland, one of Europe's largest and oldest armoured transport and storage companies.
• Your gold and silver are insured against theft from the vault through a policy underwritten at Lloyd's of London.
• A Big Four accounting firm annually audits GoldMoney's operational procedures as well as the precious metal bar inventory at the vaults and metal circulating electronically in our system. These SAS 70 Type II reports are made available to GoldMoney customers upon request.
• GoldMoney also provides quarterly audits of the metal held for its customers.

As an important customer protection, GoldMoney has established a clear governance policy and audit trail with unrelated third party companies, which include VIA MAT International and Euro-Dutch Trust Company.

Administration of all metals is provided by an independent party (Euro-Dutch Trust Company) that safeguards your metal by making sure gold and silver are only removed from the vaults under the direction of its owner, i.e., GoldMoney's customers.

GoldMoney was purposefully set up in this way to provide customers with assurances that their metal is safe.

• Accounts at GoldMoney are free to open, and there is no minimum balance requirement.
• Sell your gold and silver back to GoldMoney anytime at the Current Spot Rate (no exchange fee).
• The storage fee for gold is only 0.15% to 0.18% per year, and for silver is only 0.87% to 0.99% per year. Most precious metal storage companies charge retail customers at least twice as much (2% or more per year) for silver and four times as much (1% or more per year) for gold.