Digital Gold: Have you pocketed everything you need to know?

Hello fellow investors

Digital Gold is considered as one of the best and most convenient ways to invest in gold for us gold love-stuck Indians. In the past one year, every other payment app like Paytm, Google Pay and now even Amazon Pay has joined the players who offer Digital Gold. Even many stockbrokers have joined the offering to cater to the Indians' love for Gold.

The increasing gold prices and higher returns in the past 1 year have only further affirmed this love. Is this digital gold all that glittery for real? Have you looked at the fees, cost structure, and the regulations behind buying digital gold? Read this article to understand the various nuances of digital gold and things to consider before buying digital gold (only for convenience)

Digital Gold – Have you pocketed everything you need to know?

The entire mantra of Digital India has been pushed to gold as well and now an investor can purchase gold using payment apps like Paytm, Phone Pe, Google Pay, Amazon Pay, etc.

As investors, it is important to be aware of how Digital Gold functions; where is the money eventually going, and how cost-effective this investment is. Here we will break down these concepts for you and help you have a well-informed discussion about digital gold and it will offer you insights if you should go for it or not.

What is Digital Gold?

Digital Gold is a way to invest in physical gold ‘digitally’. It is offered by 3 main vendors in India – Augmont Gold; MMTC-PAMP India Pvt. Ltd (a joint venture between state-run MMTC Ltd and Swiss firm MKS PAMP) and Digital Gold India Pvt. Ltd with its Safe Gold brand. Various payment apps such as – Paytm (Safe Gold), Google Pay (MMTC-PAMP), Amazon Pay (Safe Gold), and investment platforms such as – Kuvera, Groww, and stockbrokers bring to you this digital gold in partnership with one of the three vendors. There are many new financial service providers who are adding digital gold to their bouquet of services.

So how does this work? When an investor buys gold via these apps, physical gold equivalent to that amount is kept safely in a vault under the security of the vendors. The investor can then choose to sell the gold at any time using the same app or convert it into gold coins (after reaching a certain limit).

Digital gold enables an investor to buy, sell, and accumulate pure gold of finesse 99.99 (24K gold) infractions anytime, anywhere. Thus, even with a minuscule monetary investment of INR 1, an investor can buy gold (even if it’s a minuscule quantity of it) at their convenience regardless of the time and place. What’s more, is that one can do so without worrying about the purity of gold.

Is this product really all gold?

To dig deeper into the digital gold framework and its working, we checked the buying & selling prices on various apps and compared the same to MCX gold prices.

MCX Price on 18 September was INR 51,210

As you can see from the table above, there is a clear difference between the buy and sell price of digital gold. Also, the prices on these apps are much higher than the MCX price for gold.

The gold price is higher on the platforms as they charge convenience fees, gold handling charges, trustee fees, storage charges which are all included in the gold price but there is no breakup of these charges mentioned anywhere. Additionally, a GST of 3% is also payable on the gold price.

Meanwhile, the selling price is substantially lower than the buying price and on top of it, some platforms also charge a convenience fee when you sell the gold.

Making & delivery charges – An investor can take physical delivery of gold in the form of gold coins and jewellery (Paytm has tie-ups with Kalyan Jewellers). While converting to coins, making charges and delivery charges are payable. On the Paytm app, the minimum quantity of 0.5 grams of gold is required to convert to gold coins and the charges vary from 384 for 1 gram gold coin to 944 for 10 gram gold coin (these charges and specifications varies across each app)

Apart from the additional cost, the risk of investing in digital gold is that there is no regulator for the product. When digital gold is bought, the vendor purchases gold of an equivalent amount in the investor's name. Generally, a trustee is appointed to see if the quantity and purity of gold is maintained in line with the gold purchased by the investor. However, currently, there is no regulator to oversee if the trustee is doing the work properly. This is a point of concern because even the apps which help one to buy digital gold are only a medium to buy it. Ultimately gold is stored with the vendors.

In light of the lack of regulatory framework coupled with the high cost of digital gold, other investment options of gold such as sovereign gold bonds & Gold ETF appear more viable when investing larger amounts of money and for longer periods.

On the other hand, digital gold helps us, gold love-struck Indians, to accumulate gold in smaller quantities as investing in large amounts may be out of bounds for a large section of the population. And this can be seen in the high volume of transactions seen by platforms like Paytm in a short span of time.

If you want to know more about the basics of Digital Gold, do check out our video on the same through the following link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNnyBJw6sm4&t=2s&ab_channel=WealthCafeFinancial

Disclaimer: - The articles are for information purposes only. Information presented is general information that does not take into account your individual circumstances, financial situation, or needs, nor does it present a personalized recommendation to you. You must consult a financial advisor who understands your specific circumstances and situation before taking an investment decision.

'Investing' in Real Estate?

Hello fellow investors!

Roti - Kapda - Makaan has been the three needs of us Indians and we strive to make that makaan a reality. Once the makaan works as a shelter it becomes our personal asset. When you go for the second or the third property for investment reasons then you should consider the following points before proceeding.

Yes, the returns are good in real estate. We have always stated that investments are not all about returns, it is about building your portfolio to become financially free. So instead of just comparing past returns of both asset classes and claiming equity is better than real estate or vice versa, we would like to consider other important aspects.

1. Real Estate will skew your Asset Allocation

Investing is all about the right asset allocation. Investing a major portion of your investments in real-estate could skew your allocation in that direction for a very long time.

Once the Real estate is added to your investments, your allocation is considered with 4 assets, Real Estate, Gold, Equity & Debt. Once you choose to buy real estate, it may take a few years for other asset classes to occupy a significant portion of your portfolio. Hence, you should check and consider the reasons for investing in Real-estate.

2. It is hard to assign “present value” and calculate ‘growth’

Most people talk about how much their property is worth without actually speaking to potential buyers. It is only when you do so, you realize what is the real selling price of it. People would rather wait and enjoy lower returns than sell their properties at a price lower than what they want/wish to receive.

There is no designated market price. He who haggles the best wins here. Because of the lack of such a standard price, it makes real estate risky as most times people are stuck with a price they have in their mind without actually checking it for real.

3. It is not liquid enough that you can sell whenever you want.

I am sure you have heard of this, you cannot sell a bathroom to meet a financial emergency unlike Equity, mutual funds, and some debt options which can typically be traded in small amounts and on any business day.

You need to have other liquid assets (i.e. have a balance allocation) to take care of your financial needs.

4. TAX cost, buying another property.

The tax on capital gains from real estate in a way encourages you to go ahead to buy another property. As per the law, if you want to avoid capital gains tax on real estate you should necessarily reinvest the same in another property or in section 54EC bonds (with low returns) for 3 years to ensure the capital gains are tax-free.

5. Difficult to sell emotionally

Many people post-retirement do not have enough fixed income and other liquid investments to manage their every day cashflows. They are still not able to liquidate their properties for cash and use it for a more relaxed late age. They have an emotional attachment towards it and then it gets rationally difficult to decide to sell.

6. Risk of renting out

No guarantee of regular income. One may need to constantly look for tenants. Issues with paying property and water tax, and the legal hassles associated with tenants not moving out!

We do not intend to discourage you from purchasing houses for the purpose of investments but it is about becoming aware of what are the issues you can face when you do so. Before taking the decisions about investing in real estate, do calculate your returns, the money you would make from the investments in real - estate, and know your numbers. A close analysis for real-estate purchases should be done in a similar way as you would do for any other asset.

Analyze your risk-taking capacity and your goals before you make the final decision.

Happy Investing!

Investments / Real Estate - 08/28/2020

Impact of Compounding - Why should you start your SIP now.

Compounding is also one of the reasons why you must invest as early in your life as possible, even if the amount that you are planning to invest is small.

SIP (Systematic Investment Plan) is the best way to achieve the same too.

Many people keep waiting to have enough before they could start investing. In fact, the key to wealth creation lies in starting to invest immediately and staying at it for a long period of time. Let's understand this with the help of this example.

Bunny - A planned guy, started investing at the age of 25

Avi - A bit laid back, started to invest only at the age of 35.

Bunny Invested 10,000 per month for 30 years, investing a total of 36 lakhs, whereas Avi started late so he invested 15,000 per month for 20 years, totalling his investment of 36 lakhs and matching Bunny's Investment.

At the age of retirement at 55, Bunny makes 6.92 crores, 3 times more than Avi, who makes only 2.24 crores.

Bunny has the edge over Avi for starting 10 years early and continuously investing even if it is with smaller amounts.

Now what if Avi wants to achieve the corpus of 6.92 crores that Bunny did. How much will Avi have to invest to achieve that?

Well given that Bunny is making 3.5 times more than Avi at the age of 55, Avi will have to invest 3.5 times more than what she was investing originally. Avi will have to put aside INR 46, 240 per month from the age of 35 to 55 i.e. a total investment of 1.1 crores. Versus Priya invests only 36 lakhs to achieve the corpus of 6.92 crores.

Now one thing that is very clearly evident from the case is that the investing style is the difference in their portfolio and how Starting early can make all the difference in your returns. Bunny started 10 years earlier than Avi in his 20’s and he achieved a higher corpus by over 4.5 crores. Another best thing done by Bunny is he stayed invested for a long period of time. i.e. 30 years.

Tabular representation

Particulars	Bunny	Avi
SIP amount	10,000	15,000
Start Age	25	35
Invested Till	55	55
Maturity Date	At age 65	At age 65

Maturity Amount	6.92 crores	2.24 crores

Total Amount Invested	36,00,000	1.1 crores

So the 2 things that create magic for your investments are

1.Starting early

2. Investing for long……….. Long term.

When it comes to investing, the earlier you start the better, the compounding effect grows your money exponentially.

These can give you astonishing results, so what are you waiting for! Start today.

That is the power of compounding taking effect for the investor who started early.

Equity / Investments - 03/02/2019

What is XIRR in Mutual Funds and How to compute the same?

What is XIRR? How to compute the same?

Cash inflows and outflows may not always be evenly matched and instead, these could be at irregular intervals.

Specially, in a mutual fund SIP. In the case of SIP, there are investments made at regular intervals, some withdrawals, then investments and so on. There is no fixed pattern of such investments and it makes calculating the exact return on these investments a bit difficult.

XIRR or extended rate of return is a measure of return when multiple investments at different points of time are made in a financial instrument.

SIP Investments Method

In a SIP, you keep investing regularly over a long period and get back the maturity amount upon exit. SIP investments happen on a pre-decided date and even the amount is fixed and depending on the NAV of the scheme on that day, you get a certain number of units. You can read more about SIP in our Article http://www.wealthcafe.in/why-should-you-do-a-sip/

Hence, you keep accumulating units from the day your SIP starts. On the day you exit the scheme, i.e., redeem your total units, you get the maturity amount, which is NAV (of redemption day) multiplied by total units (on redemption day). You may also choose to redeem a part of your investments as and when you need them.

XIRR is used to calculate the return in the case above where various investments are made on different dates and the simple return formula is not applicable.

XIRR can be computed using an excel as excel has an inbuilt XIRR formula. To compute XIRR, we do not need the NAV amount or number of units.

The details required :

SIP Amount
SIP dates
Any lumpsum Investments
Date of such investments
Redemption Amounts
Date of Redemptions

Steps to Compute XIRR. (The steps are explained with reference to the image below)

Step 1 – Enter all the transactions in column B

Step 2 – In the next column (Column C), enter all the amounts of SIP and the lump sum investments. All the investments amount should be in negative. Also, any lump sum amount should be added to this column and the same should also be in negative.

Step 3 – In the case of redemption, add that amount in Column C in positive.

Step 4- In the next box, enter the XIRR formula which is = XIRR (select all dates, select all values)*100. This shall give you the XIRR amount.

You can see the extract of the excel in the photo below.

Investments / Money tips - 02/08/2019