FAQ - GFI GOLD

Since being founded in 2005, GFI GOLD has been the preferred partner of private and professional investors in Switzerland and abroad when buying and selling gold and other precious metals.

Based on this experience, we fully understand how customer satisfaction and a quality service are important for our business. A happy customer will always come back.

GFI GOLD was originally a bureau de change but we gradually moved into specialising in gold and precious metal investments (https://www.fsma.be/fr/party/gold-forex-international)

You can put your trust in us without any concern.

Banks have ceased to offer this service to individuals for a few years now.

And fewer and fewer professionals are active in the gold and metals sector. However, qualified trustworthy businesses, like GFI GOLD, have taken up the baton and offer customers the opportunity to buy and sell investment gold and precious metals.

While buying and selling gold and metals is completely legal, regulations in this area have become tighter over the years. Nowadays, in the interests of fighting money laundering and fraud, you need to show that your gold and metals are traceable. This is done by holding onto certificates and proof of ownership documents.

For foreign exchange:

• Please come to our office located on the ground floor of 4, rue des Barques, 1000 Brussels.
• Our foreign exchange dealers will check your identity (a process called “Know Your Customer” or KYC) and verify your tax residency before carrying out any exchange.

For transactions relating to gold and other metals:

• You should create a customer account first on gfigold.ch so we can carry out the identification process. You can then go to “My Account” (see how to create an account). This will make buying faster and easier. In fact, the entire order confirmation process and order tracking takes place on our online platform.
• You then need to go to the first floor at 4, rue des Barques, 1000 Brussels. Our gold and precious metals experts will meet you and advise you fully.

Our office is located at 4, rue des Barques, 1000 Brussels. We do not have any other offices at the moment. While there may be similar sounding businesses, this is the only office of GFI/GOLD & FOREX INTERNATIONAL. If you are unable to travel, we can help with our home delivery service (for Switzerland/Luxembourg) or our safe deposit service called GFI Safe.

If visiting the office, the “Contact” page of our website can help you find out how to get there. The routes shown there take into account the recent traffic layouts made to the city centre of Brussels.

We are open from 9am to 4:30pm, without break, Mondays to Fridays.

Our online platform is available from 8:30am to 8:30pm Mondays to Fridays. On the platform, you can buy or sell up to €60,000 worth of gold (via GFI Safe) and other precious metals per transaction.

We neither buy nor sell jewellery.

Our specialisation is focused on investment gold and other metals in the form of coins and bullion.

We accept cash up to a maximum of €3,000.

The majority of our customers pay by wire transfer using their account on www.GFI.gold (see how to create a customer account).

It is also possible to pay using a bank card (Bancontact) up to the authorised limit placed on the card. You should contact your bank branch to check your limit before coming to the office.

We do not accept credit cards (Visa, Mastercard, etc.) or Cartes Bleues.

Under the law, we can only pay up to €500 in cash for gold and other metals (our office also limits the use of cash as much as possible and strongly favours the use of electronic payments). For sums over this legal limit of €500, we will pay the outstanding amount on the same day by transfer to your bank in the country in which you are a tax resident. GFI GOLD reserves the right to pay the entire amount by wire transfer.

For foreign exchange, transactions of up to €3,000 can be done in cash or by bank card (Bancontact). Customers are increasingly using bank cards to buy foreign currencies; cash is not as common as before.

As part of the digital transition, our office opts not to use cash whenever possible.

We buy all coins that are shown on our website gfigold.ch.

As for bullion, we buy LBMA-certified bullion and also non-international ingots such as French and Belgian bullion (Emeko, etc.). However, we apply a small discount to the latter types to cover the costs of smelting.

Important: we will require proof of ownership (e.g. bills, notarised gifts or inheritance documents or a privately signed letter of gift) in the case of selling us coins or bullion that were not originally bought from GFI GOLD. Each transaction is registered and undergoes an internal verification procedure (Know Your Customer or KYC) to establish the origin of any gold worth €10,000 and over.

No. Never clean your gold or other metal coins before coming. You could destroy its delicate, fine details. Once cleaned, they lose value and we would buy them for less than their gold value.

Once one of our experts have appraised your gold or precious metal at our office and all details are deemed in compliance, our finance department will pay the same day to your bank in the country in which you are a tax resident. We advise you to keep your bank card and ID card on you to complete the transaction without delay.

For people who are tax resident in Switzerland, there are no taxes payable under current law on any capital gains realised from an investment in gold or precious metals. As for non-residents, you should look into the tax legislation that applies to your country of residence. GFI GOLD is not obliged to withhold any taxes. Every resident and non-resident taxpayer must comply with the tax law of their country of residence.

Once we receive payment, our finance department will send you an email confirming receipt of your payment and will ask you to come collect your order. A minimum 24 hours is required between the order and the collection by the customer so that we can run internal checks on the transaction.

We suggest calling by within 10 days of receiving the confirmation email. If you cannot collect your order during that time, there is no need to worry: we will store it for another few days but please do let us know. For large orders, our private parking lot is available to customers in the interests of utmost discretion.

Thanks to the expertise of our staff, we offer a professional, reliable service that guarantees all bought products are genuine and compliant. Our experts carry out checks on all products before being sold. GFI GOLD only sells quality products. Any item of poor quality is sent directly for smelting.

Whether its foreign exchange or precious metals, all our displayed prices are after all fees. Our only caveat would be on the disrepair of the currency and the quality and type of the coins or bullion.

GFI GOLD maintains full transparency on the prices displayed. There are no other fees or commissions.

You can buy gold and precious metals from GFI GOLD even if you are from abroad. We will have to verify your details as part of KYC (Know Your Customer). However, there are some countries that we do not deal with and if you are tax resident in one of those counties, we cannot sell to you. The list of these countries is regularly updated by our compliance department.

As for foreign exchange, you must be physically present at our office at 4, rue des Barques (1000 Brussels).

For foreign exchange, it is not possible to deal on behalf of a third person.

For gold and metal transactions, you can come collect an order for another person if you have a duly signed and dated power of attorney. The office can provide you with all the information that must appear in this document so it can be properly prepared ahead of time. The agent must also have identification on them and a copy of the other person’s identification in order to collect the order. To avoid any problems, call us on +32 (0)2 513 9240 so that we can check your power of attorney document in advance.

In Switzerland, you can gift your gold in two ways:

• one is by signing a private gift deed. This avoids having to pay gift taxes as long as the person making the gift (donor) does not die during a certain period (this period varies according to where they are tax resident). If the donor dies during this period, the beneficiary of the gift will have to pay taxes on the gift. We recommend you talk to your notary to find out all the formalities to be completed as part of a private gift deed.
• the second is by making a registered gift which requires the payment of a gift tax but it removes the requirement that the donor needs to remain alive for a certain period. This may require the gift agreement being notarised.

If the deceased had entrusted their gold or precious metal to GFI Safe, we would require a certificate of inheritance signed by a notary before we hand over the property to the heirs.

Gold and metals brought to us for sale by beneficiaries of an undeclared inheritance will be rejected by our compliance department. If need be, we can direct you to a tax expert who will be able to help you regularise the situation.

Your gold is not stored at GFI GOLD’s office at Rue du Midi. It is stored in an external warehouse secured and managed by BRINK’S. This company is a US listed multinational company that specialises in the logistics and security of transferable securities.

Your gold is insured at its replacement value and is audited twice yearly by an independent external auditor. You can check the auditor’s declaration through a myGFI lodgement statement.

We can deliver your gold or metals to you anywhere in Switzerland and Luxembourg.

Our delivery service can deliver up to €30,000 worth of gold to private customers in Switzerland and Luxembourg. There is no need to leave your house.

The cost for delivery is €50 including VAT.

For customers based in France, call us on +32 (0)2 513 9240

The premium is the percentage difference between the spot price of a coin and the ask or bid price.

The premium can be positive or negative and depends on a number of factors, such as supply and demand, inventory, liquidity and rarity.

From a practical perspective, the buyer would like to buy at the smallest premium possible; while the seller would want to sell when the premium is as high as possible. Premiums are already incorporated into the prices we display.

The spot price is the intrinsic value of the coin, that is, the value of the gold contained in it as based on the price of gold on international markets.