Johannesburg - Precious metal refiner Metal Concentrators (MC) last week bought something new to the local investment table with the launch of a precious metal product, Money Cowry shells.
This investment product, once it gets the green light, will get legal tender status and will not be subject to VAT. Investors view gold as as a safe haven asset in times of volatility.
Neville Crosse, the chief executive of MC, said the Money Cowry shells made owning gold and other precious metals “a reality for the people of South Africa”.
MC said the new Money Cowries offered an alternative way for the” man in the street to own physical wealth”.
Crosse said, “The return of the cowry shell shape in precious metal marries the concept of the original currency with mankind’s fascination with gold, silver and platinum, as well as the modern world’s value attached to commodity metals, specifically gold as a vehicle for wealth and the ultimate international currency with its footprint in the Cradle of Humankind.”
MC refines precious metals, including scrap and jewellers’ waste material as well as supplies gold, silver, platinum and palladium.
Crosse said MC was in a unique position as both refiner and suppler of these products to be able to buy them back at favourable market related rates.
Natanya van Niekerk, the product development manager of MC, said on Friday that MC currenctly could not sell the Money Cowries locally as the company was waiting for regulatory approval but could export these products with their geographical licenses.
Once the company got the local go-ahead it would look at how to sell the product locally, Van Niekerk said.