Gold is one of the most popular investments in India, and people across the nation consider it to be a precious metal used not only for its incremental value but also as a good omen.
With everything going digital, gold has also entered the e-market, where you can buy and sell gold on digital platforms without physically owning it.
This helps you benefit from the increasing gold prices and opens a significant trading opportunity for traders with the utmost safety and transparency.
With the times changing and everyone shifting to online investments, there is no doubt that people are now getting more interested in buying digital gold.
But where do you buy it?
Can you trust these online brokers with your hefty investments?
Is digital gold even real?
Don’t worry.
In this blog post, we’ll clear all your doubts regarding digital gold and also look at 7 of the best apps to buy it in India.
So, let’s get started without wasting any more time.
What is Digital Gold?
Before knowing the platforms where you can find digital gold, it’s equally important that you understand exactly what it is. So, in simple words, digital gold refers to a digital asset that is designed to mimic the characteristics of physical gold, such as scarcity, fungibility, divisibility, and durability but exists solely in digital form.
Typically, digital gold is a form of cryptocurrency that is backed by physical gold reserves or uses blockchain technology to maintain a transparent and decentralized ledger of ownership.
Now, the next important question is, where do you buy this exactly?
Below are the top apps to buy digital Gold in India.
1. Paytm
Paytm is one of the leading mobile wallet companies in India, with over 300 million users worldwide. In fact, it is one of India’s leading mobile-first financial services platforms for buying, selling, and storing digital gold.
It offers a secure platform where customers can purchase physical or virtual gold coins using their credit/debit cards or net banking accounts without having to worry about security issues like fraud or hacking.
The app also offers instant access to live prices so investors can easily track their investments on the go as well as set up automated alerts when certain thresholds are met or exceeded by price movements in either direction (upward/downward).
Top Features
- Get physical gold delivered to your doorstep
- Gold accumulation plan
- 995 Purity level gold
- No storage fee
- 24×7 customer support and assistance
2. PhonePe
PhonePe is certainly one of the best apps when it comes to online payments. However, it’s also a great platform if you’re interested in buying digital gold from your smartphone.
You can easily buy 24K pure gold digitally in a matter of minutes. On top of it, you can even convert your accumulated gold to coins and bars through the app itself.
PhonePe also has the facility to provide absolutely free bank-grade lockers to store your gold. This means that you can completely relax with your investments.
Overall, PhonePe is an all-rounder that can fulfill all your needs when it comes to investing in digital gold.
Top Features
- Instant money deposit after selling your gold
- Safe and reliable investment options
- With a minimum of 0.5gms of gold, you can convert it into coins
- Minimal delivery fee
- User-friendly interface
3. 5Paisa
5Paisa is one of the leading platforms when it comes to investing in digital gold. It offers users an easy way to purchase 24-carat pure physical gold online with no delivery charges or hidden fees.
The platform even promises to deliver assured and certified gold with almost 99.99% purity. This means that you can trust 5paisa if you plan to hold on to your gold investment for a long time.
5Paisa also aims to give 100% safety assurance to its investors and thus has highly secured and guarded vaults to store your gold.
Additionally, they offer secure payments via net banking or debit/credit cards along with an integrated wallet feature that allows customers to store money safely within the app itself without having any need for external payment gateways like PayPal or Stripe.
Top Features
- Single touch Login by Fingerprint/FaceID
- Customizable Watchlist & Ticker
- Multilingual Support in 8 Indian Languages
- Buy gold for as low as Rs.50
- Hassle-free selling and instant deposit of funds in your bank account
- Instant account opening and paperless work.
4. Google Pay
Google Pay has recently entered into the digital gold space by launching its own ‘Gold Savings Plan’ feature where users can invest in virtual coins backed by actual physical Gold stored securely at banks across India (HDFC Bank & ICICI Bank).
With the Google Pay Gold Savings Plan Feature, customers can do more than just buy coins. They can also sell them back at any time and receive the current market rate plus a 10% bonus value each time they do so. This means that if customers purchase coins through this plan, they have the option to sell them back later and receive more than what they originally paid for.
Furthermore, all transactions are secured using UPI PIN codes, making sure that user data remains safe while transacting through Google pay App.
Top Features
- No transaction charges
- Instant fund transfer upon selling
- Zero making charges
- Hassle-free onboarding and sign up
- Buy gold as low as Rs.1 through Google Pay
5. MyJar
Aiming to bring a revolution in the Indian investing space, MyJar is trying to make investing a habit, and the only asset where they invest their user’s funds is digital gold.
In simple words, Jar rounds off your spending and adds the extra money to the app. Now, the users are asked to play a game where they have a chance to win additional money or even double their savings.
After this, the app invests the savings of the users in digital gold and gives real-time updates about their returns. Overall, this app plans to motivate the youth of the country to save more and invest their funds in an asset that can yield them good results.
Top Features
- More than 10 million active users
- 24 karat 99.95% pure gold
- World-class vaults
- Get your gold delivered to your doorsteps in the form of coins or jewelry
- 100% safe and secure platforms
6. Groww
Groww is one of the leading investment apps in India that allows users to buy and sell digital gold. The app offers a seamless and hassle-free way to invest in gold without the need for physical storage or transportation.
With Groww, users can purchase gold in small denominations starting from as low as Rs. 10. The app also offers a range of payment options, including UPI, net banking, and debit/credit cards. Additionally, Groww ensures that the gold purchased by users is 100% insured and stored in secure vaults.
The app provides real-time updates on gold prices and allows users to sell their gold and withdraw the money directly to their bank accounts. Overall, Groww is a reliable and convenient platform to invest in digital gold.
Top Features
- Zero account opening charge
- Simple user interface
- Buy gold in small denominations at your convenience
- No physical paperwork
- Hassle-free buying and selling of digital gold
7. Tanishq
One of the biggest jewelry players in the Indian market, Tanishq also offers digital gold to its customers.
You can purchase 24-karat pure gold through their platform with transparent functioning, with products that are powered by SafeGold.
Invest as low as Rs. 100 or as much as you wish!
Tanishq’s digital gold can also be exchanged across 350+ stores in India, where you can buy it in its physical form.
When you buy digital Gold with Tanishq, you do not have to bear any locker fees as the gold is safely stored without any hidden charges. The platform allows you to buy or sell gold anytime with only a few clicks!
Their robust customer support ensures you never face any issues while investing in digital gold through their platform.
And that’s a wrap!
Overall, all of the apps mentioned above are great if you’re looking to buy digital gold in the country.
However, there are some highs and lows in every single one of these apps, and it is up to you to choose the one that matches your needs closely.
RBI regulations to invest in digital gold
Since the gold market does not fall under a specific financial sector, it remains in the gray zone, having a self-regulatory auditing system with a due diligence mechanism of its own.
As of now, gold is offered and stored by 3 major companies, Augmont Goldtech, MMTC, PAMP India, and Digital Gold India.
In addition to that, the government also offers Sovereign Gold Bonds to its citizens, which are government security that is denominated in grams of gold.
They act as a perfect substitute for holding gold physically, and trading is done in terms of the price fixed per gram by the central government.
SEBI’s role in the digital gold market
Recently, SEBI has proposed a framework wherein a digital gold platform/exchange will be set up to make sure seamless trading of gold in its electronic form. Till now, the e-gold market was not regulated by SEBI, and it has ordered already registered brokers to cancel out the trading of e-gold till then.
This rule has taken place to encourage a transparent spot price discovery mechanism in the market.
The future towards the new gold spot exchanges
With investors’ increasing demand for gold, SEBI has approved its guidelines for bringing in a fully dedicated spot gold exchange.
This will provide liquidity, price discovery, and quality assurance of security along with a transparent trade mechanism. This will lead to creating a national price structure for the yellow metal which will directly compete with the SGB, Gold ETFs, and digital gold prices.
Instruments traded on these new gold spot exchanges are termed Electronic Gold Receipts or EGRs, and all recognized stock exchanges will be able to launch this new instrument in the market.
Things to remember with respect to the EGRs
- A GST will be applied on converting EGRs to physical gold.
- If you wish to store the physical Gold through EGRs, prices will be higher than what bank lockers offer.
- Converting EGRs will only be allowed after you have at least 50 grams worth of Gold in EGR form
- Retailers will be allowed to accumulate gold in this form.
- EGRs will have a tax structure similar to ETFs
- EGRs are said to be more liquid than ETFs
- Gold providers will be able to use EGRs to back the gold they have.
Conclusion
There have been several amendments that are taking place regarding digital gold and its existence in the Indian financial market.
However, only for the good. To make sure retail investors are safe.
A few broking houses such as Groww have discontinued the investment in digital gold due to the same reasons. But there are still some platforms enabling you to invest in one of the most sought-after things in the country – the yellow metal.
With the top 5 names that we have discussed, you should rest assured that you can seamlessly invest in e-gold without worrying about the storage, purity, or exchange of the same.
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