Founded by Paul Tustain, BullionVault sits somewhere between Goldmoney, for safety and Gold storage, and more traditional trading services. Bullionvault is UK-based, although an additionally interesting feature is the ability to store your gold in their New York, London or Zurich gold vaults. Dependent on which country you are a citizen of, you will probably feel most comfortable placing your gold outside of that country so that is not subject to your local government jurisdiction, so top marks for considering that feature.
An interesting aspect of the three separate vaults is that these could be considered as separate currencies in their own right. For example, if at some point in the future there was a repeat of the 1930s US Gold confiscation, gold stored in a New York Vault might become priced significantly lower than gold stored in a Zurich vault, as US holders try to sell and place their gold outside their own jurisdiction.
BullionVault allows you to buy and sell Gold on their impressive looking trading platform, where buyers and sellers of gold from each vault can meet and state their required selling/buying prices, so if you are more inclined to hold gold, occasionally sell on a dip, then buy in again later, then this could well be the best service for you.
Their fees for transactions and monthly storage are really low too, so they are very worthy of investigation. The storage fee is currently $4 per month fixed, regardless of holding size, and only payable for the months in which you held Gold.
Again, Bullionvault has proved popular with Gold Bugs accumulating gold for the future financial crisis they believe is in the offing.
Payment into BullionVault is by bank transfer. Payment out is by bank wire transfer to your chosen bank account.
In recent years, they introduced a silver option. That they took so long may have been something to do with BullionVault being UK-based and the UK charging VAT on silver sales, which could, to many observers, seem to be another example of government getting in the way of free trade.