R-Money to introduce one-gram gold coins

R-Money, the Anil Ambani group's retail brokerage arm, will introduce gold coins in smaller denominations of half gram and one gram in the market. The market is currently dominated by 5-gm and 8-gm coins.

R-Money CEO Sudip Bandyopadhyay told Business Standard that the company had placed orders with the Swiss refiner, Valcambi, for 2.5 tonnes of gold coins.

"We are confident of selling the total amount during Diwali," he said, adding that the company in the past three months since May had sold 0.5 tonne of coins.

The company has already spruced up its sales network for the purpose. In addition to all Reliance Webworld and Reliance Communications outlets, R-Money will make the gold coins available for customers through a television channel. "At present, we are selling gold coins in Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu. We target to make them available in almost every state," he added.

The country last year consumed 800 tonnes of gold. Coins account for 10 per cent of it. ICICI Bank alone sold 2.5 tonnes of coins while Tanisq sold nearly one tonne. The other established players include HDFC Bank.

R-Money, which last week emerged as the brand with the best online security and the most cost-effective among stock broking platforms as per a survey by media services specialist Starcom, is on an expansion mode.

The company has set a target to increase the number of outlets by three-fold to 10,000 by the year-end, covering 5,000 cities across the country against the existing 3,000 cities.

"Our aim is to be present in 5,165 sub-divisions in the long run. We intend to bring all bank account holders under our trading systems," Bandyopadhyaya added. India has a total of 5,645 sub-divisions and has 270 million bank account holders.It is also setting up kiosks at various joints such as Barista, DTDC and CMC.

The company has recently signed an arrangement with a Pune-based non-government organisation, Rural Relations, to create a network of entrepreneurs to sell its products in the rural areas.

The initiative will be expanded in 5,000 tehsils in the country in the first year.