Interesting observations. They claim that their inventory is regularly audited, all bars are stored in segregated (per-person) bags in the vault, and that they send pictures of the contents whenever transfers occur. As long as there is zero spread between buying and selling, the markup effectively cancels out.
Iāll run a scenario now to see how this might work:
Scenario 1: BullionStar gold bars for 1 day
buy 10x100g bars: $6408.87 * 10 = $64088.70
store for 1 day: 0.39% / 365 * $64088.70 = $0.68
net funds in = $64089.38
sell 10x100g bars: ā¬5436.08 * 10 = ā¬54360.80
unknown: wire transfer fees w/o currency conversion
Scenario 2: TransferWise
net funds in = $64089.38
fees = 0.44% ($280.61)
net funds out = ā¬53896.08
Scenario 3: mid-market with zero fees (hypothetical, from xe com)
net funds in = $64089.38
net funds out = ā¬54134.60
Remarkably, the BullionStar conversion yield is better than the unattainable āmid-market with zero feesā yield. I wrote to them asking whether USD ā gold ā EUR transactions are permitted, and whether there are any catches and extraordinary fees. Iāll send an update when I hear back.