Investing in gold: how to buy gold bullion for your Self-Invested Personal Pension (SIPP)

For those interested in investing in gold, the good news is you can now add it to your Self-Invested Personal Pension (SIPP).

If you think that investing in gold will provide good value in the long run, then you’ll be pleased to hear you can now add it to your Self-Invested Personal Pension (SIPP).

As of today, the Royal Mint will allow investors to include gold bars in their pension pots.

You can choose from Royal Mint Refinery 100g and 1kg bars, with prices linked to the real-time gold price.

Sadly, you’ll not be allowed to include Royal Mint gold coins in your SIPP as they’ve have not been authorised by HM Revenue & Customs - although there is the option to buy a small share of a gold bar.

Note that you won’t actually be able to keep your gold investment at home - it'll be stored in a secure vault.

That won’t come for free, so you’ll have to factor in an annual fee of between 0.5% and 1% plus VAT when deciding if investing is worthwhile.

You can find more information on buying gold bullion directly from the Royal Mint here. Or you can look at a host of other investment options at the loveMONEY investment centre.

What the Royal Mint has to say

Chris Howard, director of bullion at the Royal Mint, claimed investors would feel more confident investing with such a reliable brand.

"The Royal Mint benefits from a centuries-old reputation as a trusted bullion provider and manufacturer of coins on a global scale,” he said.

"The move to make Royal Mint gold bullion available for holding within pension schemes opens us up to a whole new marketplace."

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What do ‘the experts’ say?

However, some have questioned how popular the offer will prove with pension investors. Jason Holland of financial advisers Tilney BestInvest told the FT:

“Most investors wanting exposure to gold will do so either through Exchange Traded Commodities, which follow bullion prices and are backed up by physical reserves, or through the prism of gold mining stocks or funds specialising in gold equities.”