Our Address
SILVER BULLION PTE LTD
9 Raffles Boulevard #01-108
Millenia Walk
Singapore 039596
Operating Hours
Daily 10:00 am to 8:00 pm
Closed on Lunar New Year holiday
Office: +65 6100 3040
For directions, please click on this link https://www.silverbullion.com.sg/Info/Directions
"IPM" stands for "Investment Precious Metals" and is the term used by the Singapore Customs to denote what constitutes tax free bullion. Since 1 October 2012, certain investment grade gold, silver and platinum can be imported or sold GST (tax) free in Singapore. Singapore tax authorities define non taxable bullion as "Investment Precious Metals" or "IPM" whereas taxable bullion is referred to as “non-IPM".
There are no capital gains taxes in Singapore so this page focuses purely on the Goods and Services Tax (GST) - similar to VAT in Europe - which applies upon import or purchase of bullion. The completed GST exemption rules have been published as an IRAS e-Tax Guide titled GST: Guide on Exemption of Investment Precious Metals (IPM).
The tax exemptions are meant to encourage the trading and storage of physical investment grade bullion but are limited to a clearly defined subset of the bullion market. Numismatic coins, jewellery, gold / silver gift items or any bullion not defined as "IPM" are not tax exempted and will still be subject to GST (currently 8%).
In broad terms, the bill states four basic qualifying criteria which must be fulfilled:
1. Purity of silver, gold, and platinum should be 99.9%, 99.5% and 99% respectively
2. Is capable of being traded on the international bullion market (see detailed criteria below)
3. Bears a mark or characteristic that is internationally accepted as guaranteeing its quality
4. Trades at a price based on the spot price of the metal it contains.
In addition the following detailed criteria apply:
1. Only a subset of investment coins are tax exempt: See SINGAPORE TAX FREE BULLION COINS
2. Only bars refined by current or past LBMA / LPPM accredited refiners are tax free: See SINGAPORE TAX FREE BULLION BARS
3. Furthermore IE Singapore (a Singapore government entity) can qualify additional bullion refiners to be tax exempt
As a Singapore Bullion Market Association (SBMA) member Silver Bullion Pte Ltd, along with the Singapore Mint and UOB, were selected in the second quarter of 2012 by the Ministry of Finance to provide feedback on the type of investment grade coins that will be tax exempt. We are proud to note that with our subscribers' help and submitted feedback (see July 2012 newsletter) the Ministry of Finance has re-instated the Silver & Platinum American Eagle coins as tax exempt. The American Gold Eagle coins remain taxable due to the minimum purity requirement.
These investment coins are classified as Investment Precious Metals (IPM) and are GST exempt:
All the bars we sell are tax free. IPM (investment precious metals) status and tax exemptions for bars are determined according to the refiner (producer) of the bars as follows:
1 For gold and silver, a refiner included in the current or former Good Delivery list of the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA)
See List of Silver and Gold LBMA members
2 For platinum, a refiner included in the current or former Good Delivery list of the London Platinum & Palladium Market (LPPM)
See List of Platinum LPPM members and List of Palladium LPPM members
Please note that IPM Status applies to all qualifying (see Basic Qualifying Criteria above) bars made by these refiners and is not limited to the standard, bulky (1,000 ozt silver and 400 ozt gold) Good Delivery bars.
For example, the popular 100 oz Johnson Matthey silver bars are tax exempt as they fulfill all basic qualifying criteria and Johnson Matthey is a refiner on the LBMA list.
Credit Suisse branded gold bars are also tax exempt as they fulfill the basic qualifying criteria and are refined by "Valcambi SA" which uses the logo "Essayeur Fondeur" - see mark on bar - and is a refiner on the LBMA list.
We have committed substantial resources in building a web-based service to facilitate the most efficient trading platform to buy precious metals and EV metals in Singapore.
We can be contacted by phone for clarification and support but all orders need to be locked in (submitted) through our website. Phone orders are substantially more expensive to support and are not yet an option with our current service structure. We are contactable from 7AM to 2AM Singapore time on weekdays and 9AM to 1PM Singapore time on Saturdays except for public holidays in Singapore.
Mail orders are not accepted due to the constantly fluctuating market prices and because the local post office does not deliver bullion. As such, please order from our website and we will process your orders as we receive them.
This is a very common question and the "oz" shown on our website means troy ounce and it is the unit of measurement when you are buying precious metals which are gold, silver, platinum and palladium.
1 troy ounce = 31.1034768 grams or 480 grains
So what is the difference between a Troy Ounce, and a standard ounce?
"Some historians believe the troy ounce had its origins in Roman times. Romans standardized their monetary system using bronze bars that could be broken down into 12 pieces called "uncia" or ounce, with each piece weighing around 31.1 grams.
As Europe's economic importance grew from the 10th century onward, merchants came from all over the world to buy and sell goods there. It was therefore necessary to develop a new standardized monetary weight system to make doing business much easier. Some believe the merchants of Troyes modeled this new monetary system using the same weights as their Roman ancestors."
(Source: Investopedia)
Numerous internet-based scams and fraudsters are associated with gold. Typically, these scammers don't approach us directly but instead reach out to intermediaries to set up the "transaction" for them. Each week, we receive numerous emails, sometimes calls, from these intermediaries offering multi-million dollar deals or transactions involving several tons of gold but are unaware of how the gold market works.
While we appreciate your confidence in the authenticity of your customer, and we hope you are right, we kindly request you to take the following into account for your safety prior to getting in touch with us:
A deal for one (1) ton of gold is a large transaction, even for the professional markets—almost every inquiry over one (1) ton of gold is from a con-artist. If you are genuine, you can be almost certain that your customer is not. If you are certain that your customer is genuine, you can be almost certain that their Customer is not.
One (1) ton of gold is worth about $61m. Anyone with that kind of money to spend can walk into any bullion bank in the world and be treated like royalty. They do not need to contact you.
As of the year 2021, the US owns 8,134 tonnes of gold, while Germany owns 3,403 tonnes. If your customer is asking to buy/sell/lease amounts in this range, then they are either Russia, China, or a con-artist. Russia and China do not need to contact you.
One tell-tale sign of an internet scammer is the discount. Typically, they will ask for a discount of 5%, which they will offer to split with you. This sounds like a great deal until you realize that there are no discounts in the gold bullion market. The gold bullion markets are vastly deep and highly liquid. Nobody sells at a discount because they can already sell as much as they like, whenever they like, at the full price. The only people who will offer you a discount on gold bullion are the other scammers who are pretending to sell.
Most of these scams work by getting the victim to invest a large amount of time and energy in setting the deal up. Then, just as it is about to go through, the victim is asked for a few hundred dollars to cover some fictional banking or legal fee. The victim pays because it's small compared to the time they've already spent, and even smaller compared to the profit they hope to gain.
Internet scammers usually live in very poor countries. It is a fact that some people can work full-time for a year to con just one person out of a few hundred dollars, and consider it a good year's earnings. They can afford to waste everyone's time parting you from your money. When they've done it it's extremely easy for them to disappear.
That said, we can arrange large orders if they are genuine, subject to our Terms of Service plus the following:
The buyer/seller must verify their identity before dealing and must pass our Know-Your-Customer (KYC) process.
The deal will be arranged at the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) pricing, typically for a two-day settlement.
You must send the funds in advance, and you can only purchase when our bankers have notified us that your funds have cleared. No credit will be extended, no matter which banking institution vouches for it.
If you have checked that your Customer is happy with those terms, then please Contact Us.
Once you submit an Order or a Sellback, all prices are locked-in, and a binding legal agreement between you and Silver Bullion is created to purchase and/or sell precious metals or other products. It is not our intention to enter into buying and/or selling transactions, accepting the risks involved only to have them canceled. However, we realize rare situations happen where orders need to be canceled. In such cases, we may allow, at our sole discretion, to dissolve the binding legal agreement to buy and/or with you. All cancellations are subject to our Market Loss Policy plus a Cancellation Fee of 5% of the Order or Sellback total (minimum of SGD 45).
Any cancellation requests must be filed via telephone during normal business hours. Silver Bullion will evaluate any request to cancel an Order or Sellback on a case-by-case basis, and only under extraordinary circumstances will a cancellation request be approved.
Your order can be priced in either SGD, USD, Euro, HKD, AUD, GBP and CAD.
Please refer to the instructions on our Payment Options page.
Payments using Visa, MasterCard and UnionPay issued credit/debit cards are accepted for both SGD and USD orders and are processed through our payment partner – Stripe. This payment option is limited to 20,000 SGD payments (or its USD equivalent) and involves an additional credit card transaction fee.
For payment using a credit/debit card (SGD & USD Only), please go to your Order Balance page and click on the "Pay Balance" button.
After that, key in your details and proceed. When you are done, you will see a "Payment Successful" page.
Buying and selling of metals, is executed on a cash only basis. As soon as we order from suppliers, they expect us to receive the funds within one business day. Likewise, for our customers, they would also have to send us the payment as soon as possible, even if delivery will take three or even four weeks. Once a customer submits an order, you can assume that we have covered your order, and that we are awaiting payment from them.
The Swift Code and the account number are unique enough for a wire transfer thus, there is no need for an IBAN number.
Do refer to the full payment details on the payment options page here.
Your order can be priced in either SGD, USD, Euro, HKD, AUD, GBP or CAD currency or Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin. This is useful to avoid currency exchange charges.
The silver spot price “is the instantaneous price someone is willing to pay in cash for a unit of silver”. Usually the unit refers to one troy ounce (31.1 grams) and it is normally priced in US dollars.
It is determined in a few major worldwide commodity exchanges around the world during local business hours. Major exchanges are in London, New York and Hong Kong. As exchanges worldwide open, we update our selling prices in short intervals to follow market prices. As bullion margins are very low compared to traditional jewelry outlets we need to keep prices as updated as possible.
Furthermore as we accept other currencies besides USD as payment, we price our items in these currencies by converting the US dollar silver spot prices based on the current exchange rate. Therefore our prices change when either the spot prices change or the other currencies’ exchange rate changes.
Please note, for large orders, we can transact based on the LBMA morning price for a given date.
When silver market exchanges such as Comex are closed, the price of silver is not updated as no trades are executed. Exchanges will be closed on from Friday afternoon onward (through the weekend) until Monday morning, and during certain holidays.
Physical bullion always has a premium over spot price to cover:
• Manufacturing and assay costs to strike and certify bullion coins or bars
• Insured transport and storage costs
• Possible taxes (7% GST in Singapore was removed on October 1, 2012)
• Capital costs which are very high as the industry is strictly based on prepayments
None of these costs apply to pure paper silver derivatives as they represent a price exposure to the spot price with no practical means to convert to physical bullion. Hence physical bullion and paper derivatives of silver are two very different products as the former can be quickly issued in nearly unlimited amounts and is settled in currency whereas the later represents a finite physical commodity.
The exact ratio between physical positions and paper positions is not known exactly and it can be defined in various ways. The practice to lease silver out, which would normally be counted as reserves, further complicates obtaining an accurate number. However based on the Comex futures exchange, this ratio is around 5%. Studies by the CPM Group assume a 1% ratio when other forms of silver derivatives are included. It is therefore a safe assumption that there are somewhere between 10 and 100 paper derivative claims for every ounce of physical silver.
In this context the simplicity and lack of counterparty risk of fully owning physical bullion over the long term lends itself very well as a protection against inflation, a currency crisis, and, is likely to appreciate as confidence wanes in financial institutions and complex derivatives. However its higher transaction costs make it ill-suited to frequent trading when compared to paper silver derivatives.
On a side note, silver in the form of jewelry commands premiums of 800% + over spot prices. This is very high compared to bullion prices which, in the case of coins – such as Perth Mint coins - can also be of very high quality and finishing.
We offer competitive discounts through our Discount Tiers.
When comparing prices with other online bullion dealers outside of Singapore, check whether they will ship internationally. Many bullion dealers in the U.S.A. do not ship internationally due to insurance and customs regulations that differ for every country.
Next, check if your order is fully insured. Insurance is a large component of the shipping cost and normally requires a third party insurance as courier services (including FedEx and UPS) will insure only a small portion of the order. Without insurance, should the order be lost in transit, it would be very difficult to make a claim in the country of origin.
If a dealer does ship internationally you would need to add the following costs to your order:
• Shipping and insurance Courier services will charge a shipping fee for delivery but will not insure high value goods such as Silver Bullion. Third Party insurance will normally represents an additional 2% to 3 % of shipment value for Silver (Gold is below 1%).
• GST (tax) depending on jurisdiction, the shipper, not the seller, (eg: FedEx) will pay customs duty (if applicable) of the shipment value on your behalf to get the silver cleared through customs. You will receive a invoice from the shipper for the GST plus a service fee for forwarding the money.
• Other fees, such as currency conversion fees from SGD to USD and wire transfer fees normally add another 1 percent or more as the bank will normally give you an exchange rate significantly below spot market rates.
• Prepayment Risk. Unlike our COD option which allows you to take delivery at the moment you pay, you almost always have to prepay, and ultimately carry a failed delivery risk, when ordering from abroad.
The total cost of the above is what you actually buy silver at. Please consider this in order to make a fair price comparison. Prices on the Silver Bullion website already include all of the above and we publish silver inventory that is in stock here in Singapore.
No. Since 1 October 2012, you do not have to pay GST (goods and services tax) on all bullion products that we sell. When you make an order through Silver Bullion Pte Ltd, we will issue you an invoice stating that you did not pay any GST.
Prices will continue to change until you lock in a price by clicking on the button 'Submit Order' on the summary page. Please refer to our Policies page for more details about price confirmation and the ordering process.
Discount tiers are volume discounts, with a twist. The twist is that we combined the points of your past purchases to your current order to determine your discounted Tier price.
What are the benefits of the Discount Tier Program?
The system assigns a discount tier based on the ounces of bullion and tons of EV metals (points) in the shopping cart and the past orders [requires login] bullion ounces and tons of EV metals (points) according to the following tables:
Each Purchased oz or ton Counts as:
1 Silver oz = 1 point
1 Gold oz = 10 points
1 Platinum oz = 10 points
1 Palladium oz = 5 points
1 Nickel ton = 322 points
1 Cobalt ton = 1,286 points
To Determine Your Tier:
Tier 1 - 0 to 2,999 points
Tier 3 - 3,000 to 9,999 points
Tier 5 - 10000 to ++
The accumulated metals discount applies across all product types across all your transactions. This is true regardless of order type. Whether you choose to store with us or choose to bring the metals back home, you earn points and will possibly enjoy discounts.
Yes. Your points do not expire, we offer discount as long as you keep using the same account to submit orders.
The orders must have a process status of "Waiting for Payment'", "Payment Received" or "Completed".
As per our own policy, gold is equivalent to 10 points per ounce that is purchased. For example, two ounces of gold is equivalent to 20 points.
For a given purchase and due to the current price ratio of silver to gold, silver will result in more points, which reflects our focus on silver. This means you go up the tier faster if you first order silver and reach the higher tiers.
After you log into the website click on the top right of the screen showing your username and click on "Order History" Your detailed order information will be listed, including number of points accumulated whether purchasing bullion or EV metals and order status.
Yes, as soon as items are added to the shopping cart the added ounces are counted towards the points balance. Prices are automatically adjusted and discounts applied.
We currently ship metals by freight forwarder outside of Singapore depending on the destination.
If you wish to have bullion in Malaysia, please visit www.silverbullion.com.my and visit our Silver Bullion Malaysia, our subsidiary's website. We have offices in Kuala Lumpur (PJ), Johor Bahru and in Penang.
We can ship internationally. Do take note that there will be possible import duties involved, depending on the country where you wish to receive your bullion. We also would advise if we cannot ship metals to certain jurisdictions, due to security concerns.
Please also take note that shipping bullion may not be cost effective, because virtually all bullion we sell are imported into Singapore, whether as finished products or as raw materials. There are no gold mines nor silver mines in Singapore, and there but a few gold refineries here.
Having said that, we can ship bullion if a customer requests for a quotation. We will engage specialized precious metals shippers such as Brink's, Loomis, Malca-Amit or Ferrari Logistics.
Yes. You can lock in a price and make a purchase from anywhere.
If you choose to do this, we require full payment to be initiated within one business day of placing your order. We will hold the physical bullion for you until you pick it up. Please note that we require customers to collect their in Singapore within one month of the order.
To sellback your metals at our retail office, please submit a sellback order via the link below.
https://www.silverbullion.com.sg/Sell
Things you need to know:
Silver Bullion is always interested to buy investment grade (.999 or higher) silver, gold, platinum, palladium bullion (regardless of where the bullion was originally purchased), or EV metals which were bought from us. A direct purchase from you is typically below volume acquisition prices. This makes buyback attractive for us.
There will always be demand for gold/silver/platinum/palladium/EV metals in the market for investment or industrial usage. We aim to provide a two way liquidity in the market whereby customers could buy and also sellback metals to us.
We have fufilled large volume of sellback amounting to millions in value and are used to handling them.
When selling bullion exceeding SGD 100,000, our payment will normally be credited to your Bank Account within two (2) business days. For transactions above SGD 250,000, or if we experience a high volume of concurrent customers sell orders, payment will be credited to your account by wire transfer within five (5) business days.
We usually pay via bank transfer to a bank account in the customer's name for sellbacks at our retail store.
Customers may alternatively request to be paid via check.
Payments on local sellbacks exceeding SGD 100,000 shall be made within 2-5 business days.
Please note that sellbacks for cash in-store are limited to below SGD 20,000.
We will be required to collect all necessary information from the customer for AML/KYC purposes.
For sellbacks through S.T.A.R. Storage, payment will be credited to your linked Bank Account within two (2) business days. For transactions above SGD 250,000, or if we experience a high volume of concurrent customer sell orders, payment will be credited to your account by wire transfer within five (5) business days.
There is a saying in the precious metals industry: “If you cannot touch it you do not really own it”. Paper silver is a derivative of physical silver bullion. In most cases these derivatives are secured through other derivatives which in turn are backed by only a tiny fraction in physical bullion reserves. Normally, there is no practical way to convert the paper silver to physical bullion. This means that you do not own the bullion, you only purchase price exposure. The lack of physical backing means that it is possible to create nearly unlimited amounts of paper silver at virtually no cost. Furthermore, only a small fraction of deposited money is needed by the issuing institution to hedge their position through other financial instruments such as Comex futures contracts.
Hence, these paper silver products can be very profitable for the issuer even with low buy / sell spreads as there is almost no cost involved in creating paper silver positions. As a consequence at the Comex futures exchange – which is often used to back silver derivatives and the guarantor of last resort – the ratio of physical silver reserves to paper positions is well below 10%. So there are at least 10 claims on the same silver and this ratio is likely to shrink further as more silver derivatives are opened. Physical silver bullion means that you take possession of the actual metal and you own 100% of the bullion (measured in troy ounces).
Many of our customers purchase physical bullion as a long term means to profit from the ongoing decline of confidence in the US dollar, given the vast amounts of debt that was accumulated over the last 30 years and the more recent explosion of currency (base money, or euphemistically called "quantitative easing") across the world. Given this context the demand for physical bullion comes from the simple fact that physical bullion, unlike bullion derivatives, cannot be created out of thin air. By owning the actual metal you can make sure that there are no multiple parties with claims on the same bullion and your position cannot be frozen or closed as it could with a financial derivative.
Thus, to actively trade on silver, a paper silver derivative that obtains price exposure will likely be a better choice as transaction costs are lower and there is no GST (tax) involved. On the other hand, for a solid long term protection against currency crises, high inflation and a potential systemic financial collapse, the simplicity and 100% ownership of physical bullion are compelling arguments.
We would still have to break the seal of the parcel and authenticate the bullion, by means of weighing and visual inspection, and if we decide to with the X-Ray analyzer and ultrasound device, as per our policy.
Our customer's buyback price is displayed on our website. Click on the "Precious Metals" tab and select the respective product you like to view.
There are no additional charges for sellback.
Yes you can, we can also wire funds in USD, EUR or transfer in Bitcoins (for sellback below USD 50,000).
The S.T.A.R. Storage interface allows you to lock in a sell price in either SGD, USD, EUR or Bitcoins.
For sellbacks in Bitcoin, please ensure that your Bitcoin wallet/address is registered with us to enable the automatic Bitcoin quote during the sellback process.
For your account security, all wires/transfers can go only to your linked bank account or registered Bitcoin address.
Payments, sellback, and conversions in bitcoin are subject to a bitcoin conversion fee in accordance with the Schedule of Charges as published from time to time on our Website.
For local sellbacks at our office, kindly note that we will have to make a copy of your NRIC or passport for identification purposes during the sellback process.
This is in compliance with the Personal Data Protection Act for NRIC and Other National Identification Numbers (issued 31 August 2018), under clause 3.13 and 3.16 as shown below:
"3.13 PDPC would generally consider it necessary to accurately establish or verify the identity of individual to a high degree of fidelity in the following situations –
a) Where the failure to accurately identify the individual to a high degree of fidelity may pose a significant safety or security risk. For example, visitor entry to preschools where ensuring the safety and security of young children is an overriding concern; or
b) Where the inability to accurately identify an individual to a high degree of fidelity may pose a risk of significant impact or harm to an individual and/or the organisation (e.g. fraudulent claims). Such transactions typically relate to healthcare, financial or real estate matters, such as property transactions, insurance applications and claims, applications and disbursements of substantial financial aid, background credit checks with credit bureau, and medical check-ups and reports
3.16 Where the collection of the NRIC number (or copy of NRIC) is necessary to accurately establish or verify the identity of the individual to a high degree of fidelity, it would generally be considered reasonable for the organisations to require the consent of the individual to collect, use or disclose his or her NRIC number for the stated purpose."