Gold to Go?

For all my blogging about gold over the last few weeks, you may not be aware of the Gold To Go ATM (automatic telling machine) that now resides a short distance from me at the Westfield shopping centre. This is not to be confused with the 1990's European TV quiz hosted by Henry Kelly. German company Gold to Go have been gradually placing gold dispensing machines in some high profile locations across the world. Much like a normal ATM you punch in your PIN to dispense money, though instead of your selected level of cash, you select the weight of gold bar that you require. Being German, the ATM is a remarkable and highly reliable piece of engineering, which is clearly a rather fundamental feature. Anyone that has ever used one of the car parks in Kingston Upon Thames will appreciate the problems of consistently failing machines.

This begs questions about money laundering and fraud, but apparantly this is all taken care of via a form of identity check. Suddenly you can appreciate that the machine does need to work rather well. The Gold to Go website says that there is money-laundering and smurfing protection. A smurfing attack is not a hoard of tiny blue...er.. smurfs? but an exploitation of internet broadcast addressing to create a denial of service... because this ATM is plugged into the internet. It includes a personal ID scanner and camera.

For those into coin collecting, this will perhaps be a temptation, indeed many may be tempted to convert cash into gold which is very neatly dispensed in mini gold bars, with local branding. Mind you, as for its original mining source, I suspect that you will not get this information printed on your receipt.