BullionVault is regulated under English law. More complex regulation under financial services rules does not apply, because our service concerns your outright ownership of physical property.
Physical precious metals are a commodity, not a credit risk or a paper-based right traded as a security. So the trading, safe custody and delivery of bullion fall outside the terms and scope of the UK's Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. That means BullionVault is not, cannot, and does not need to be regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). It is governed by English law.
If you were to think BullionVault had committed a crime, bringing a criminal case is not something you would he to do yourself. You would report – for example – a theft, and the investigation and prosecution would be the duty of the London Metropolitan Police, the UK Crown Prosecution Service, and the Criminal Court system. In addition you he recourse to the civil law if, for example, you were to allege that we were acting in breach of our stated Terms and Conditions, which set out the business arrangement between us. Note that bringing a case under civil law would ordinarily incur costs for you.
Although it is not regulated by the FCA, BullionVault adopts many of the duties which he been applied by the financial services regulator to businesses which he responsibilities for other, less tangible, stores of private wealth. These include:
the segregation of customer property to be held independent of a company's finances;the keeping of accurate records and the ailability of those records for inspection;the declaration of a conflict of interest when acting as principal in a transaction;accountability to written Terms of Business;adherence to a specified complaints procedure;maintenance of a compensation fund.What's more, the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) – of which BullionVault has been a full member since 2008 – defines the standards and practices of good commercial behiour for the professional London bullion market, heart of the global precious metals trading and storage network. These standards are formalised as the Precious Metals Code, to which BullionVault adheres and which is recognized by the FCA as defining proper standards of market conduct in our sector.
BullionVault is a rigorous adopter of all these good practices and seeks to maintain an environment where its compliance with these principles is visible and proven.