Gold ATM's will offer more monetary justice

If only the media could take cognisance of the fact that the biggest criminal element in money creation and distribution are the South African Reserve Bank and its banking cronies, who steal money from the people every year through the stealth of inflation.  Instead, true to the industry, the media focusses on the visible criminal element that gold ATM’s may bring.  What they should be focussing is on the unseen monetary justice that these ATM’s will bring to ordinary and everyday people who are looking to mind their own business and maintain the value of their own savings by exchanging their rands for gold.

Krugerrands and British sovereigns are legal tender in South Africa.  How can these journalists overlook the fact that gold is in competition with money, not even mentioning it?

Note also how the SA Gold Coin Exchange are the only ones quoted to note the risks to the business.  Just remember these ATM’s will be competing with the SAGCE, most likely providing a better service than them.  I’d also be a bit concerned as a SAGCE dealer should these ATM’s take off and be rolled out on a national scale.

However, this is great for us advocates of free market money and competing currencies.  HA says, Bring It On!

Do these guys seriously think these ATM’s will be placed outside in a parking lot that will leave them exposed to bombers?  My guess is they’ll be next or even inside an upmarket jewellery shop inside the mall.  The likelihood is that criminals would rather head for the jewellery shop if they were hell-bent on stealing gold, there’s a bigger concentration of gold just behind the glass.

ATMs may have criminals going for gold

Plan to install gold coin dispensing ATM at Waterfront

MICHAEL BLEBY

Published: 2011/01/26 06:38:21 AM

THOMAS Geissler calls his gold coin dispensing automatic teller machines (ATMs) Gold to Go. If his plan to install SA’s first such machine at Cape Town’s Waterfront comes to fruition, he may find they live up to their name — but not in the way he intends.

His company Geissler C-B-T has already placed 11 such ATMs in Germany Italy, Spain, the United Arab Emirates and the US. Mr Geissler said yesterday he hopes to install an ATM at the Waterfront this year.

The bombing of an Absa ATM yesterday morning in Lyttelton, a suburb of Centurion, highlights the challenge facing the German businessman.

The number of attacks on ATMs in SA rose 35% last year from 2009, an industry body, the South African Banking Risk Information Centre, said yesterday.

While Gauteng and Limpopo have borne the brunt of the robberies, the prospect of a newly minted gold-dispensing ATM may send a few criminals to the Mother City on a working holiday.

“You mark money in an ATM in the event of a bomb, but you can’t do that with gold coins,” said Alan Demby, chairman of the South African Gold Coin Exchange. “Thieves would just steal the coins and melt them down.”

Given the costs involved in maintaining and securing such a machine, Mr Demby questioned the viability of installing just one.

Geissler C-B-T yesterday installed two machines — on the ground and 124th floors of Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building — bringing its world total to 18, spokesman Joe Dreixler said.

The machines take cash or credit card payments and dispense a packaged gold coin in return. Prices, based on spot prices of gold, are updated every 10 minutes and there are a range of coins to choose from.

Mr Dreixler said his company has not yet started talks with potential local partners. It has also not yet done a detailed security assessment of SA, he said.

“We only accept locations with a very high security level — indoor locations only, not accessible by lorry, with security staff in the building,” Mr Dreixler said.

“I’m pretty sure that, with the standards given, we would be able to deliver in SA.”

blebym@bdfm.co.za