Digital Gold in India: PayTM Metal Pay and Augmont experience were interesting, to say the least. Digital Gold in India is not new. I have invested in digital Gold since 2012. But my experience with payTM changed how I viewed Digital Gold investments. While the June experience was disappointing, my December experience was better. Read all about how a reader feedback,helped me make money.
I am a typical Indian. I love glittering Gold best.But digital gold sounds cool too.I once bought a Gold fund with the gift money on my daughters First birthday.What can I say after two years I was lucky to get back my deposit amount.
Lesson I learned
I prefer buying and gifting Gold jewelry than digital Gold. Even now.At least it still looks the same and I own it. With digital Gold and all the world’s promise you never do know.Then comes PayTm and wins my trust. It’s my favorite mompreneur money woes help. Banking on your phone was never this easy.
PayTM gold what you need to know
They are promising digital gold from the comfort of your home. It’s bought and kept in your name and stored in a physical vault. Sounds perfect right?
- Buy Gold and silver online through a phone app.
- Pay using a debit card credit card.
- Net banking wallets UPI.
- Buy in rupees or grams.
- Start as low as Rupee one.
- Sell it back online,
Get money back or get physical delivery at home.
This sounds perfect. Easy. Saving the way Indians do in a Lakshmi jhapi. Now before reviewing I wanted to use the service like a typical user.No more hassles of visiting the bank. Just PayTM karo!But all good things have a grey lining. Googling I found two other apps which let you buy digital gold. To make my research balanced I decided to check them out.
My experience with using 3 Digital Gold Buying Platforms
Augmont
- Good user interface
- Great reviews online. Easy to understand and navigate.
- You can buy in Rupees and in grams
What I did:
- Downloaded.
- Signed up.
- Bought 100INR digital Gold.
- It’s in my digital vault
- Did my KYC necessities.
- Now waiting for confirmation of KYC updates.
An answer to a Prayer? Wait.
Second Option: Metal Pay
The UI did not let me buy. Three failed attempts and I stopped trying. Metal Pay is easy until the time you try to pay. I had failed transaction twice. Then I gave up.No gold bought.
Pay TM
Bought the gold directly from the dashboard. Very easy to do. They send you an invoice which you can save. Plus it shows in your Gold saving in your dashboard.
Looks good in the passbook.
Paytm is partnered with gold refiner MMTC-PAMP to launch ‘Digital Gold’. This allows you to buy and sell gold via the platform. You can buy or sell the Gold 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, including public and bank holidays. With Paytm’s Digital Gold, customers can buy 24K 999.9 GOLD from MMTC-PAMP instantly.
Minimum transaction value is Rs 1. You can buy & sell in milligrams and lower.
How is the Digital Gold stored?
MMTC-PAMP instantly keeps it secure in their, secure, insured vaults, free of cost.
How will you get your hands on the Physical Gold?
If you want the gold delivered you need to put in a request.
How can you sell this Digital Gold?
You can sell it back online instantly. If you want to sell MMTC_PAMO will buy it back from you.T hey will also transfer the money back to the linked bank account and not PayTm Account.
This is what you find on both Augmont and PayTM easily. Then it gets interesting.
The problem with Digital Gold for me
1 week later.Tried selling the digital Gold I bought. The Cons appeared one by one.
Cons
The selling price of Digital Gold is less than buying price if you sell on the same day, this weird thing happens in Gold shops too. Makes sense from their point of view, not yours or mine.
#1 Buying and selling on the same day will definitely incur losses.
You will not be told about the exact selling price while buying the Gold, though you will be told vaguely about it
There is also a fixed PayTm charge
That’s not something I found out on my first visit though. Interesting I am unable to sell my 200 rupees Gold in PayTM and Rs 100 worth digital Gold in Augmont till the time I accumulate one gram of Gold
My discussing with hubby went like this
Me: You know what we will need to do to make money with digital Gold?
Hubby: What?
You need to buy at least 1 gram Gold.
Hubby: Why?
Me: Because I just found out that while you can buy for Rs 100 and in milligrams while selling they insist on a gram of Gold.
Hubby: How much did you buy?
Me: Total money spent 300.
Hubby that’s okay then?
Me:Buy some more and then try selling?
Hubby: no
Me: Then we will lose Rs 300.
Hubby:It’s better to suffer a 300 rupees loss that a 3000 loss.
Hmm, point there.
Will the experiment succeed? Will currency for buying and selling be made equal? Time will tell. For now, I am waiting. Hubby and I we have one principle with investment. More discussions happening in the future on this, I am sure.
No loss at all. We also believe in letting us have breathing room and agreeing before we do invest.
Should you invest in Paytm Digital Gold? Depends on your plan with it.
Is it a good investment to buy gold from Paytm: Its one of the easiest with a good trust factor.
Is it safe to buy gold online through Paytm and sell it? Selling would need a minimum of one gram of Gold in my Gold balance and I would wait to answer this question,
Update 5th December 2018
A reader on my blog Hussain very helpfully commented .that he could sell Re 1 worth of Gold on PayTM.On hearing this I went and checked it myself.I had bought RS 100 worth of Gold in June, the same time I wrote this post. In December 2018 I sold Rs 189/worth of Gold.The math I have to work out, but I definitely felt better ! Thanks to Hussain I got to know about this, and my faith in PayTM is restored. Check the comment below.
They do promise transparency!
Disclaimer: This digital investment and digital money is helpful as long as we are aware.M ake all your financial investment decisions after reading offer documents carefully. I am not a financial advisor and I am sharing only my personal experience.
Read my disclosure and Privacy policy.
Now AUGMONT on PAYTM Under maintenance.When
I bought DIGITAL GOLD in near future.
Is there a part2 for this article?
Yes coming up
Very informative and interesting.
Thank you
I think it was 2016… The day was Akshaya Tritiya. Got to know about the feature trying to recharge my mobile. Thought of giving it a try. So, I started with ₹ 11 and when I told about my ‘personal success’ to parents. The smile on their faces were worth seeing…. haha
Thank you, Sudip for sharing your experience.
Hi, just tried selling 1rs of digital gold on Paytm and it worked fine. The 1 re amount was transferred to my bank account immediately.
Hussain Thank you so much. I tried selling the PayTM Gold, after reading your comment and it happened perfectly smoothly! I think they realized the previous plan would make people uncomfortable. I too got my money back in a jiffy!