Glint Pay: Investing In A Golden Future

Glint is a 21st-century technology company that aims to make gold investment more accessible to everyday investors. Through its robust digital platform and connections in the professional gold investment community, Glint enables investors to buy, sell, and own physical gold bullion at low transaction fees. It also offers an alternative to fiat currencies, allowing clients to utilise gold as money in instant electronic payments with the flexibility of Mastercard. Glint investors can purchase any amount of gold at market rates, with a low fee of 0.5% and 1% on weekends. Gold is held in a secure vault in Switzerland, insured by Lloyds of London, and can be spent using a linked Glint debit card.

Glint's investment platform

Glint is a 21st-century technology company that aims to make gold investment more accessible to everyday investors. With its robust digital platform and connections in the professional gold investment community, Glint offers a unique opportunity to invest in physical gold bullion.

How It Works:

• Buy and Sell Gold: Through the Glint app, investors can buy and sell gold at competitive spot prices with low transaction fees. The app provides a simple and immediate way to invest in gold, allowing users to purchase any amount of gold at any time, with fees as low as 0.5%.
• Gold as Currency: Glint introduces the concept of "Gold as currency," where investors can link a Glint debit Mastercard to their gold account. This allows them to spend USD backed by their gold holdings. When spending, the gold is subtracted from their account based on the spot price at the time of the transaction.
• Secure Storage: Glint ensures that all gold purchased through its platform is physically secured and insured against loss. The gold is stored in Brinks Vault in Switzerland, one of the world's largest custodians of gold, and is insured by Lloyds of London.
• Instant Conversion: The Glint platform offers an "instant conversion" feature, allowing investors to instantly convert gold in their account into spendable US Dollars by swiping their Glint debit card. This provides a level of liquidity not commonly found in the gold market.
• Peer-to-Peer Transfers: In the UK, Glint offers peer-to-peer transfers between Glint users, allowing for easy and direct gold transactions between accounts.
• Wealth Management: Glint provides a wealth management portal called "The Gold Portal." This portal enables wealth managers to purchase physical gold and allocate it on behalf of their clients, increasing their assets under management.

Benefits:

• Hedge Against Inflation: Gold is known for being a secure hedge against inflation and a stable currency during stock market volatility. Glint's platform offers an alternative to fiat currencies, allowing investors to benefit from gold's stability.
• Low Fees: Glint prioritizes keeping transaction fees low, making gold investment more accessible to small investors. The company typically charges a 0.5% purchase fee and a 0.125% annual storage and insurance fee, which is currently waived.
• Global Spending: The Glint Mastercard is accepted globally in over 210 countries, providing investors with the flexibility to spend their gold holdings anywhere in the world.

Things to Consider:

• Spending Limitations: Glint currently limits free spending to $5,000 per day, and ATM withdrawals are restricted to $300 daily. Spending above this limit incurs a 0.5% selling fee.
• Foreign Transaction Fees: A 0.5% foreign transaction fee applies when spending in a foreign currency.
• Tax Implications: Using gold to spend money may trigger short-term capital gains implications if gold is bought and spent when the spot price is higher.

Getting Started:

Investors interested in using Glint can download the app and create an investor profile. After verifying your identity, you can fund your account by transferring money from a linked bank account. Once the funds are cleared, you can start buying gold.

In summary, Glint's investment platform offers a unique opportunity for investors seeking exposure to physical gold bullion. With its low fees, global spending capabilities, and instant conversion features, Glint provides a modern approach to gold investment, making it a compelling option for those looking to diversify their portfolios.

Gold as currency

Gold has always played an important role in the international monetary system. Gold coins were first struck on the order of King Croesus of Lydia (an area that is now part of Turkey) around 550 BC. They circulated as currency in many countries before the introduction of paper money. Once paper money was introduced, currencies still maintained an explicit link to gold (the paper being exchangeable for gold on demand).

By the late 19th Century, many of the world’s major currencies were fixed to gold at a set price per ounce, under the ‘Gold Standard’. This persisted in different forms for about one hundred years. The gold standard was the basis for the international monetary system from the 1870s to the early 1920s, and from the late 1920s to 1932 as well as from 1944 until 1971 when the United States unilaterally terminated convertibility of the US dollar to gold, effectively ending the Bretton Woods system.

Gold is a preferred form of money due to its rarity, durability, divisibility, fungibility, and ease of identification, often in conjunction with silver. Silver was typically the main circulating medium, with gold as the monetary reserve. Commodity money was anonymous, as identifying marks could be removed. Commodity money retains its value despite what may happen to the monetary authority.

Under a gold standard, the standard economic unit of account is based on a fixed quantity of gold. Historically, banking crises were more common during periods under the gold standard while currency crises were less common. According to economist Michael D. Bordo, the gold standard has three benefits: "its record as a stable nominal anchor; its automaticity; and its role as a credible commitment mechanism".

The gold standard was largely abandoned during the Great Depression before being reinstated in a limited form as part of the post-World War II Bretton Woods system. The gold standard was abandoned due to its propensity for volatility, as well as the constraints it imposed on governments. By retaining a fixed exchange rate, governments were hamstrung in engaging in expansionary policies to, for example, reduce unemployment during economic recessions.

In the 21st century, Zimbabwe became the first country to use a gold standard for its currency, in order to tackle inflation and create confidence within the economy. The Zimbabwe Gold (ZiG) is backed by US$400 million and 2,522 kg of gold, thus giving a total of US$575 million worth of hard assets.

Low fees

Glint offers low fees for its services. When buying or selling gold, Glint uses a simple and transparent pricing formula: rate + fee = total cost. The fee is a low premium of 0.5%, with no additional hidden margins. This fee structure is also applied to foreign exchange transactions, where Glint offers the real exchange rate, without any mark-ups, and only charges a 0.5% transaction fee. This is significantly cheaper than banks, with Glint claiming to be up to 6 times cheaper for foreign currency exchanges.

Glint also offers a Mastercard for spending gold or multiple currencies worldwide. This card can be used at over 30 million locations worldwide, anywhere Mastercard is accepted. There is a fee for ATM withdrawals, which is shown as 0.05 grams of gold on the statement and in the Glint app. Additionally, there is a monthly gold storage and insurance fee of 0.02%.

Glint also offers a service to redeem physical gold. However, this is not the most cost-effective way to buy gold for physical delivery, as there are additional costs such as fabrication, delivery, and redemption fees.

Instant conversion from gold to cash

Glint offers an alternative global gold-based payments system outside of the traditional banking system. With Glint, you can instantly convert gold to cash and vice versa.

Glint Pay allows users to link a Mastercard debit card to their Glint gold account. Users can then spend USD, backed by their gold. When users spend their gold, they receive the spot price of gold for that day and they pay no transaction fees if the gold is spent in the currency of their residence.

The Glint Mastercard® is accepted globally in 210 countries. You can use it to buy anything from a cup of coffee to your groceries or your next holiday.

There is a $5,000 daily spending limit and ATM withdrawals are limited to $300 daily. If you want to spend more than $5,000 per day, you will have to pay the 0.5% selling fee and then transfer the currency to your primary account.

Glint is a mobile app that makes it easy to buy, sell, store and use gold as everyday money with a linked debit card. There is no investment minimum and storage fees are currently free.

Spending limits

Glint Pay allows users to spend their gold by linking a Mastercard debit card to their Glint gold account. This card can be used to make purchases in 210 countries, anywhere that accepts Mastercard.

There is a daily spending limit of $5,000 for free spending, and ATM withdrawals are limited to $300 per day. If you want to spend more than $5,000 per day, you will have to pay the 0.5% selling fee and transfer the currency to your primary account.

Glint also imposes a $1.50 ATM fee each time a user withdraws cash. This can be avoided by using the card to pay at a register instead, as spending with Glint is free.

Additionally, a 0.5% foreign transaction fee applies when spending in a foreign currency.

Frequently asked questions