During the Hong Kong Fintech Week, the bank HSBC presented the gold token, the first real world asset token issued by a bank linked to physical gold.
In reality, the gold token of HSBC was launched in June 2024 and unfortunately for now it is only for residents of Hong Kong.
1 token is equivalent to 0.001 ounce of gold. The tokens are unfortunately (but predictably) based on a private distributed ledger, to avoid gas fees and due to issues related to KYC, or rather the fact that the bank wants to know who holds the tokens and they do not want them to be freely exchanged between users.
The difference in investing in the gold token compared to investing in gold through other more traditional channels, explains the spokesperson of HSBC, is that it is possible to buy even just a small fraction of gold and the advantage is also that it is stored digitally and is easier to buy and sell.
To buy the gold token, just a few clicks are needed and go to the investment tab of the HSBC app.
Gold is obviously stored in the vaults of HSBC.
HSBC: Some numbers on the gold token at the Hong Kong Fintech Week
The presentation reveals that one buyer out of three is a new investor; 95% buy golden tokens from mobile, and almost 90% are new to gold investments, so these are new people who previously would not have invested in gold or at all.
Currently, it seems that there are 20,000 holders of this gold token.
Regarding the fees, the spokesperson for HSBC explains that there are none for transaction, nor for custody fee.
In the future, the bank’s project is to provide the possibility to convert the token into physical gold, but currently, this is not yet possible.