• BullionVault’s VAT-free offer meets over 15% of Western world’s physical platinum investment demand in first year
• Almost two-fifths of total annual platinum use comes for autocatalysts to reduce harmful emissions from diesel engines, now subject to intense debate in Europe
• BullionVault users believe in the metal’s long-term value, investing $15.8m since March 2017

BullionVault users have seized the opportunity of physical platinum as a contrarian investment and put $15.8m into the metal in the 12 months since the platform first added it to its gold and silver offer.

Users of the world’s leading precious-metals market online have built total platinum holdings of more than half-a-tonne (16,603 Troy ounces).

This equals 15.6% of 2017’s physical platinum investment demand in BullionVault’s key target markets of Western Europe and North America[1].

Primarily used as an industrial metal, platinum helps create perhaps one-in-five of all manufactured objects today, forming a vital component for automotive, electrical, chemicals, glass, petroleum, and increasingly biomedical products.

Two fifths of the metal’s total annual demand goes to autocatalysts for reducing emissions from petrol and primarily diesel-fuelled vehicles. Diesel has come under intense media pressure following the scandal over emissions-test cheating by some manufacturers.

Adrian Ash, director of research, said:

“The flood of negative headlines on diesel have created a tide of negative sentiment towards platinum. For contrary-minded investors that opens up an opportunity to research and buy into what the crowd has overlooked.

“Diesel is likely to dominate heavy-duty engines worldwide for decades to come. For cutting emissions, platinum is part of the solution, not the problem. Platinum is also about much more than diesel. Analysts expect industrial demand to rise in 2018, led by the chemicals, glass and medical sectors, plus strong growth in fuel-cell technology for both stationary and transport power generation.”

Slashing the cost of physical investing compared to small bars and coins, BullionVault enables people to trade as little as 1 gram of platinum at a time, held in the form of large, wholesale-market approved bars.

All stored in specialist vaults in London, this platinum is zero-rated for VAT sales tax, saving UK and other European Union investors 20% immediately compared to ‘retail’ products bought from traditional bar and coin dealers.