Of all the precious metals, gold is the most popular as an investment. Investors generally buy gold as a way of diversifying risk, especially through the use of futures contracts and derivatives. The gold market is subject to speculation and volatility as are other markets. There are a plethora of precious metals, but gold is placed in high regard as an investment. Due to some influencing factors such as high liquidity and inflation-beating capacity, gold is one of the most preferred investments in India. Gold investment can be done in many forms like buying jewelry, coins, bars, gold exchange-traded funds, Gold funds, sovereign gold bond scheme, etc.

Though there are times when markets see a fall in the prices of gold but usually it doesn’t last for long and always makes a strong upturn. Once you have made your mind to invest in gold, you should decide the way of investing meticulously. If you want to know more about Gold Investment plans and other facts like different ways to buy and invest in gold, how to invest in gold online and much more, you are at the right place.

How to Invest in Gold: Best Gold Investment Plans

Coming to the most important part which deals with – “How to invest money in gold.” Well, there are some conventional and modern types of gold investments preferred by people. In conventional forms, it was just buying physical gold in the forms of jewelry, coins, billions, or artifacts. The scenario has changed nowadays and investors have more options to invest such as

Gold Coin Scheme

Gold coins can be bought from jewellers, banks, non-banking finance companies, and now even e-commerce websites. The government has launched ingeniously minted coins which will have the National Emblem of Ashok Chakra engraved on one side and Mahatma Gandhi on the other. The coins are available in denominations of 5 and 10 grams while the bars will be for 20 grams.

The Indian Gold Coin and Bar will be of 24 karat purity and 999 fineness carrying advanced anti-counterfeit features and tamper proof packaging. All coins and bars will be hallmarked as per the BIS standards. These coins are distributed through designated and recognised MMTC outlets and through specified bank branches and post offices. MMTC also offers a transparent ‘buy back’ option for Indian Gold Coin through its own showrooms across India. MMTC will repurchase the Indian Gold Coin, in intact tamper proof packaging and with original invoice, at the prevailing gold base rate.

Gold savings schemes

Gold or jewellery savings schemes come in two forms. A typical one allows you to deposit a fixed amount every month for the chosen tenure. When the term ends, you can buy gold (from the same jeweller) at a value that is equivalent to the total money deposited, including a bonus amount. This conversion is done at the gold price prevailing on maturity. In most cases, the jeweller adds a month’s instalment at the end of the tenure as a cash incentive or may even offer a gift item.

Sovereign Gold Bonds (SGB)

Sovereign Gold Bond is another way of owning paper gold. They are issued by the government but availability is not ‘on-tap basis’. Instead, the government will intermittently open a window for the fresh sale of SGBs to investors. This could typically happen every 2-3 months and the window will remain open for about a week. For investors looking to purchase SGBs anytime in between the only way out is to buy earlier issues (at market value) which are listed in the secondary market.

Digital gold

You can now purchase gold coins, bars and jewellery online. ‘Digital Gold’, is offered on the mobile wallet platform of Paytm and ‘GoldRush’ is offered by the Stock Holding Corporation of India on their website, while Motilal Oswal has launched Me-Gold, a digital gold online investment. All of these are offered in association with MMTC – PAMP, (a joint venture between public sector MMTC and Switzerland’s PAMP SA)

Making a choice

The initial cost of owning physical gold in the form of bars or coins is anywhere around 10 percent and it is even higher for jewellery. SGB and Gold ETF, both paper-gold, are cost effective as there is no entry cost in SGB while costing for gold ETF could be around 1 percent.

SGB should benefit those who want to invest in gold for a longer period as its maturity is after 8 years, although the lock-in ends from the fifth year. However, gold ETF provides much better liquidity than SGB. Owing units is much easier than SGB as it’s entirely online in case of ETFs. The risk of owning, holding also doesn’t exist in both.

The big difference is on the taxation front. Gains in SGB on redemption are tax-exempt but gains in Gold ETFs after 3 years are subject to 20 percent tax post indexation.

The only disadvantage with gold ETFs is that its units won’t be earn the additional interest of 2.5 per cent per annum like you would get for SGBs.

Get clarity as to why you need to invest in gold – is it for marriage purpose or for pure investment. For investments, one should not have more than 10 percent of the total portfolio in gold. Choose between Gold ETFs or SGBs depending on how comfortable you are managing investments online and keep the worries of purity, security aside.