Patrick from AnyGoldNow, one of the older DGC exchange agents, brings us this information seen in the Le Metropole Cafe. Le Metropole Cafe is a well known hangout for top precious metal gurus such as John Brimelow (VDARE), Bill Murphy (GATA), Greg Pickup & Neville Bennett. This is the direct quote from the cafe:
“I learned from sources at Brink’s Global Services today that their CEO sent out an email informing the staff that they will no longer vault gold for internet gold services. They expect to terminate their exiting contracts with vaulting customers! The source said they “no longer want those customers”.
My source claimed that they would still vault gold for “non-internet customers”. This distinction is essentially arbitrary in today’s world of electronic transactions. Their other vaulting customers include banks and commodity exchanges. Commodity exchanges obviously offer internet-based front ends for purchasing gold, and some banks (such as Everbank) do also.
My source also added that he presumed the issue was “money laundering”. However, I believe the only online allocated gold services that currently vault with Brink’s Global Services are e-gold (who also vaults some of their inventory with Transguard in Dubai) and BullionVault. BullionVault does not even allow any form of transfer between users and transfers money in and out only through a single bank account, so it cannot be used for money laundering at all.
This move will definitely cause operational problems for allocated online gold dealers, and chill the growth of newer ones. In the short term, those businesses will likely approach European firm Via MAT and Dubai’s Transguard, both of whom do some business in that space, who will hopefully take up some of the traffic.
In my MIDAS entry of December 14, 2006, I referenced a meeting with the Brink’s North America CEO. Brink’s North America and Global Services are related but distinct, with separate CEOs, under holding company Brink’s Incorporated (BCO). During the meeting, the North America CEO was unrelentingly unwilling to discuss any sort of vaulting services. When I pointed out that Brink’s already had several customers in that space, he told me flatly that he did not want to have them, and he indicated that Global Services would not be any more helpful. Apparently the chill I detected in that meeting has emerged as a corporate strategy against allocated gold for the international Brink’s corporate entity.
- David R”
As of today, February 23, 2007 e-gold has 2,593,325 grams ($57+ million USD) of precious metal in the Brink’s lock up. This does not seem to be any big concern since there are many more private vault services around the globe. However, we will watch for any additional information which may show a trend or possible new vaulting services. Other large precious metal positions with e-gold are held through Transguard and MAT Securitas Express AG.
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