Inside Africa’s Move Towards Digitising Gold

As Gold continues to remain a store of value, Africa financial innovators continue to work toward digitising the Currency. This is in line with the thriving gold mining industry on the continent, with Ghana, South Africa and Sudan ranking among the top gold mining countries. Fintech startups and investment firms in Africa are making moves to further the idea of globally acclaimed Digital Gold Currency (DGC), by finding new tech-driven routes towards digitising gold as a financial asset.

A South African fintech startup Troygold, has attained a milestone by enabling gold owners to digitise physical gold and use it for day-to-day transactions via a mobile app and gold-backed Mastercard. The platform already has over 5,00 users across its two markets in South Africa and Singapore.

Troygold, which was founded in 2018 by brothers Bastiat and Dane Viljoen, digitises gold bullion and Krugerrands and allows users to purchase, trade, spend, and borrow against their gold. Troygold’s technology digitises vaulted gold bars or coins with serial numbers, allowing for entire or fractional ownership.

Customers receive an ownership certificate that details the bar or coin they possess, as well as the serial number and location of their gold. Storage facilities are now located in Johannesburg and Singapore.

Customers have two choices with Troygold, a free gold savings account that digitises the customer’s gold stores of value, and a Mastercard-backed gold debit card that allows gold owners to buy products and services at any of the 40 million Mastercard-accepting businesses across the world.

“Troygold’s mission is to solve the access and liquidity problems of owning physical gold. We’re building the financial tools to allow gold, history’s oldest form of money, to function alongside fiat currencies in the modern financial system’, said co-founder Bastiat in a session with Disrupt Africa.

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