GoldPlan is an organized method of buying gold for
this purpose. It is based purely on the investment and
inflation insurance aspects of gold, and does not involve
gambling on coin collecting values, or other gimmicks.
And it is designed to be more efficient and more
economical than buying gold coins for their bullion
value.
GoldPlan is an investment account created by
UberseeBank, a medium sized Swiss bank which specializes
in investment management. The bank does not engage in
general commercial banking or in lending to corporations
or foreign governments, so it is not exposed to such
risks, nor does it have any conflicts of interest with
managing the investor's money for best results.
Founded in 1965, the bank now serves over 12,000
clients, managing funds of almost US $3 billion. It is
a wholly-owned subsidiary of American International Group
Inc., one of the largest insurance holding companies.
AIG has assets exceeding US $45 billion and capital of US
$8.3 billion. It employees 33,000 people in over 130
countries.
GoldPlan is based on cost-averaging, rather than
trying to outguess the market. It is designed for simple
and systematic savings -- for example, an investor might
decide to put $250 per month into gold. That $250 is
going into gold every month, regardless of what the
market does. In the long run the gold cost will be less
than the average market price in the same period. This
is called cost-averaging. It requires no market
expertise from the investor -- just the dedication to
make the same fixed investment each month regardless of
the market. (In fact, some investors make a point of not
looking at the market price.)
A similar technique is used by stock market
investors -- the cost-averaging principle is the same
regardless of what is being bought. A fixed dollar
amount is being invested every month, rather than buying
a fixed unit such as one share or one ounce.
Uberseebank handles the GoldPlan accounts, sending
detailed statements on each purchase of gold made for the
investor. By purchasing in this manner, the investors
benefit from the bank being able to buy at wholesale
prices normally available only to large purchasers. In
turn the investor pays no extra fee on small unit amounts
nor the regular spread charged when buying and selling
gold. These savings can be as much as 3% because of the
wholesale price, and another 8% by not having to pay
small order surcharges. When added to the 20% savings
that is often typical with cost-averaging, the investor
is able to build the gold portion of his portfolio in the
most economical way.
Naturally, such accounts are treated with the same
secrecy as any other Swiss bank account. Each investor's
gold is held separately by the bank, in a fiduciary
(trustee) relationship. This is important, because it
means that the gold is always the investor's property,
and not merely a gold denominated obligation of the bank.
Thus solvency or credit standing of the bank can not
affect the investor's holdings, although a bank failure
in Switzerland is almost unimaginable even with a
commercial bank -- and UberseeBank does not even assume
commercial risks.. Of course the gold is insured as well
as guarded, and the investor has a choice of having it
stored in Switzerland, the United States, or Canada.
GoldPlan accounts can be tailored to the investor's
needs. One may want to invest more money to achieve the
diversification goal more quickly than originally
intended. Flexibility is the keyword in the operation of
these accounts. The investor can suspend monthly
purchases at any time without penalty.
Account possibilities range from monthly purchases
to large lump sum purchases, depending upon the
individual investor's needs.
In deciding how much of a portfolio should go to
each type of investment, it is best to ignore the
existence of the personal residence or a personally owned
business. These are not really investment assets, and
serve a different purpose. They do not provide ready
access to capital for either growth or emergency funds.
To achieve a properly balanced portfolio, it is better to
diversify based on only the liquid investments.
Otherwise one can find that the picture has become
unbalanced, by including a very large part of the wealth
in a non-liquid position, and counting that as part of
the diversification.
The firm specializes in dealing with English
speaking investors, and everybody in the firm speaks
excellent English.
Swiss Secrecy and Protection of GoldPlan Accounts
Switzerland has long served as a magnet for the
money of wealthy foreigners who perceive the world as
buffeted by over-taxation, over-regulation and political
turmoil. They are attracted, of course, by the
confidentiality and discretion that have been a hallmark
of Swiss bankers since the French Revolution, when they
offered financial refuge to French aristocrats.
Banking in Switzerland, a land of few natural
resources, has been immensely lucrative. Operating in a
country less than half the size of Maine, Swiss banks
control more than $400 billion in assets, making the
country the third-largest financial center in the world.
For people with money to protect -- whether a little
or a lot -- Switzerland is traditionally considered the
world's safest repository. These days, the Swiss can give
Americans many reasons to leave funds in Switzerland But
the promise of total secrecy in financial matters remains
one of the greatest attraction of Swiss banks.
That promise isn't just a lot of hype. Secrecy and
discretion in financial matters are anchored in the
democratic principles of Switzerland. It is a
cornerstone. In 1934 the Swiss put teeth in their
traditional code of bank secrecy by enacting the Swiss
Banking Law. To stop Nazi agents from bribing Swiss bank
employees for names of account holders, the law
prescribed a hefty fine and prison sentence for any bank
employee caught divulging information on bank customers.
Moreover, the law decreed that bank employees must carry
their secrets to the grave -- not just until they leave
the bank.
The Swiss Banking Law remains very much intact
today, but instead of Nazi agents the law now confounds
agents of the US Internal Revenue Service. If the
accountholder doesn't tell, the IRS cannot find out how
much they have on deposit in a Swiss account -- or even
that a Swiss account exists in their name -- unless it
can convince Swiss authorities that they have committed
a criminal offense under Swiss law. Those last three
words are key, because many infractions that are
considered criminal in the US -- most significantly, tax
evasion -- aren't criminal offenses in Switzerland.
Unhappy with their reputation as magnets for illicit
dollars, many Swiss bankers downplay the secrecy shroud.
Rather than secrecy, the best reason to open a Swiss
account, they say, simply is to internationalize your
investments.
The argument goes like this: the risk in a portfolio
is lessened when the assets are diversified among
different investments. So why not diversify further by
investing money in countries besides the US? To do that,
an investor needs access to international markets.
Switzerland really is a financial supermarket in that
regard.
Swiss banking is often identified in America with
banking secrecy. Popular media stories have created two
contradictory pictures: that Swiss secrecy hinders law
enforcement officers from prosecuting criminals, while
others claim that Swiss secrecy does not exist anymore
and is as full of holes as a Swiss cheese. Neither is
true.
The basic position in Swiss civil law is that the
information concerning a customer and the customer's
financial dealings is protected as part of the
individual's legal right to privacy. In Switzerland,
this has been made part of Article 28 of the Swiss Civil
Code, and not only protects the information, but makes
the person violating the secrecy liable to pay damages to
the customer. In addition, the banking law makes it a
criminal offense in Switzerland for a banker to divulge
information about a customer in violation of the law,
punishable by fine or imprisonment. Both the bank and
the bank employee may be subject to various penalties if
a violation occurs.
A bank can only disclose information when authorized
to do so under existing statutory provisions or by a
Swiss court order, which must be founded on law. Secrecy
is interpreted so broadly that it is illegal for a bank
to say whether or not a person is a customer, since if
the bank failed to do so it would be implying that the
person was a customer.
The right of secrecy is a right belonging to the
customer, not the bank. It is the customer's privacy
that is protected by law. The customer can waive the
secrecy, but the bank cannot. For example, the customer
may waive secrecy and ask the bank to give a credit
reference to a specific creditor. But such a waiver is
only valid if the customer acts voluntarily and not under
duress. Therefore, waivers that were signed pursuant to
foreign court orders compelling a customer to sign a
waiver may well be invalid. A financial institution
cannot ask the government for an order waiving secrecy.
Only the customer can waive the secrecy.
Contrary to an opinion current in America, Swiss
secrecy is not absolute. It can be overridden by
statutory provisions which compel the giving of
information.
Such rules requiring disclosure of information --
usually with a limited scope -- can be found in Swiss
inheritance law (one really wouldn't want the sole
legitimate heir going into the insurance company with a
death certificate to be told they can't tell him
anything), in enforcement of judgments from creditors, in
bankruptcy or in divorce.
The most widely known limitation on secrecy is in
treaties concerning Swiss cooperation in foreign criminal
matters.
In a criminal investigation conducted in
Switzerland, of a Swiss crime committed by a Swiss
citizen, secrecy can be lifted by court order. The
treaties extend this possibility to foreign crimes by
foreign citizens in foreign investigations, but only in
the limited circumstances spelled out in the treaties.
Before a foreign legal assistance request for Swiss
financial records can be honored the following conditions
must be met:
1) Compulsory disclosure is only possible if the
offense that is being prosecuted is punishable as a
criminal offense in both countries (the requesting state
and Switzerland).
2) In tax cases assistance is available to foreign
prosecutors only if the investigated violation of foreign
tax laws would be qualified under Swiss law as a tax
fraud and not merely as tax evasion. Tax evasion is
simply the failure to declare income or assets for
taxation. Tax fraud is distinguished by the fact that
"fraudulent conduct" is involved. Normally "fraudulent
conduct" can only be assumed if forged documents are
used.
There is a special provision of the Swiss-United
States Treaty on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters
that provides Swiss legal assistance to U. S. prosecutors
even in tax evasion cases if they are conducting an
investigation against an organized crime group.
3) As a general rule, the information obtained in
Switzerland through a legal assistance procedure may not
be used for investigative purposes nor be introduced into
evidence in the requesting state in any proceeding
relating to an offense other than the offense for which
assistance has been granted.
It must be emphasized that foreign authorities or
foreign courts cannot directly ask a Swiss financial
institution for information. Even in cases in which legal
assistance can be granted and therefore secrecy is
lifted, only a Swiss court order - which in these cases
is based upon a foreign request for legal assistance -
can validly lift secrecy.
Considering this, it can be said that secrecy is
strict and is only put aside in case clearly defined by
Swiss law and pursuant to Swiss rules. Secrecy is,
however, not absolute and does therefore not protect
criminals.
The principle of neutrality protects all wealth,
equally. This principle of neutrality is important
toward understanding why the Swiss excel at the
preservation of individual wealth. Your wealth simply
cannot, and will not, be held hostage in Switzerland. By
staying out of international conflicts and maintaining
strict neutrality, Switzerland has become a refuge for
capital from all over the world.
Too often in the history of mankind have paper
currencies become worthless. The huge gold reserves
behind the Swiss currency simply prove that Switzerland
trusts gold more as a monetary reserve than foreign paper
currencies. Today, in most of the world, gold is out,
the laughingstock of the marketplace. Paper money is
king, but then junk bonds were king in the 1980s.
The past ten year record for gold has not been good,
especially for those who simply chose gold out of loyalty
to the principle that gold and sound money are important.
So is gold extinct? The history of money has
clearly shown that it is not -- paper money will fail
again, and again, and again. There is no reliable way to
know when, but we can accept the lesson of history that
it will. The popularity of an investment has nothing to
do with its soundness.
