UK investors flock to fintech firm BullionVault as gold prices soar
London fintech group BullionVault attracted a 90 per cent increase in UK gold investors this year and saw annual trading volumes increase by more than a quarter.
Market volatility and uncertainty surrounding the EU referendum in June and ahead of the US election in November led gold and silver prices to soar, contributing to a trading volume increase of more than 28 per cent to £689m, BullionVault said in unaudited results. An average of 5,000 deals per week were completed on the platform.
Read more: The price of gold has fallen to a five-month low
Pre-tax profits at BullionVault, which is a platform for physical gold and silver trading that launched in 2005, grew 43 per cent in the year ending 31 October, reaching £5.6m in turnover up 12 per cent to £420m.
Chief executive Robert Glynne said: "With the gold price easing back since Donald Trump's election, this year's jump in precious metals investing has grown again.
Read more: Can silver prices keep rising?
"Risk events such as the French and German elections look likely to shake financial markets still further in 2017. The ability to trade bullion at weekends or overnight, when stockmarkets and traditional dealers are shut, may prove as important as it did on June's Brexit result. In our increasingly competitive market, private investors continue to choose BullionVault for simple, secure and low-cost access to physical gold and silver 24/7 online."
The 2016 financial year was BullionVault's heaviest for net demand since 2012, for both gold and silver, the group said.
Customers have since added more than three-quarters of a tonne of physical gold in November alone – the strongest month for net demand since the global financial crisis peaked in November 2011.