Friday, July 06, 2012

Turkish Banks offer Gold Deposit Accounts

Speaking of a reset in the global order monetary, one possible step towards the reintroduction of gold as money is for the banking system not only to accept gold as loan collateral but for people to be able to have gold deposit accounts which could pave way for payments and settlements services in gold.

Banks in Turkey seems to have lunged into this path.

From Mineweb.com

For centuries, Turks have flocked to the jewellery shops of Istanbul's labyrinthine Grand Bazaar to trade their gold - ornaments handed down through their families over generations, or bars stashed under mattresses as savings. But in recent months the shops have a new and unexpected competitor: banks.

The country's commercial banks are pouring their technical expertise and marketing resources into offering their customers gold deposit accounts. Customers hand their gold to a bank and can make withdrawals from their accounts in gold bars or the lira currency; the accounts offer interest rates that are substantially lower than those on normal time deposits.

Gold deposit accounts have been growing around the world, but Turkey's boom has made it a leader in the trend. This appears to have cut the amount of gold flowing to jewellers in the Grand Bazaar and elsewhere in the country, a trend which dismays the shop owners. In the long run, it could threaten their business model, which relies partly on turning scrap gold they buy into jewellery and selling it back to retail customers…

Gold is big business in Turkey, for cultural reasons and also because of the country's experience with bouts of high inflation over the past century. The metal is traditionally given as a gift at weddings and circumcision ceremonies, and demand for imports tends to surge during the summer months.

Turks are believed to have accumulated about 5,000 tonnes of gold in their homes, worth around $250 billion at current international prices, according to the World Gold Council, an industry lobby. It ranks Turkey's gold demand as fifth in the world for jewellery and eighth for retail investment, mostly behind countries with much bigger populations such as India, China and the United States.

I hope that Philippine banking system does the same.

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