Gold Credit
China and Zimbabwe are both offering bank accounts using gold as money, or, at least, redeemable as gold.
According to a tweet widely shared on the fin-twit community (financial Twitter), gold can now be used as money in banks in China. Bai Xiaojun, the CEO of Investment (translated via twitter from Chinese to English), which focuses on gold and silver, tweeted[1]
“Just in: Many Chinese banks have launched RMB account conversion gold account business. It can purchase gold from a RMB account and deposit it into a gold account. Unlike purchasing gold in a store, bank account gold is recorded in two ways: current and fixed. (1)
Physical gold can be withdrawn or directly transferred to a cash account through the bank's gold account. Credit cards cannot be used. Bank of China did not make a big fuss about it, but many banks are already taking active action. (2)”
His tweet includes photos of an Article from the Beijing Business Daily translated to English. The original article is entirely in Chinese so this author has to take the world of Mr. Xiaojun on its translation, though he summarized it well.
While China seems to be offering gold a money its self (whether they honor their obligations is another matter), Zimbabwe is offering to back credit with gold. That means that their banknotes can be redeemed in gold.
Per Joseph Cotterill, writing for the Financial Times,[2]
Zimbabwe is launching gold-backed digital tokens as President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government struggles to prop up the southern African nation’s inflation-wracked currency months before elections.
[…]
Now Harare is betting on the success of the digital investment, hoping that its backing with gold will damp price pressures in a country that has suffered regular rounds of hyperinflation. The launch on Monday will follow the issuance last July of physical gold coins as stores of value.”
However, as the article continues, few specifics have been presented, such as storage locations and audits. However, Zimbabwe is a major miner of gold.[3]
China and Zimbabwe are both offering bank accounts using gold as money, or, at least, redeemable as gold.
[1]https://twitter.com/oriental_ghost/status/1655449183552425984
[2]https://www.ft.com/content/64eb2348-23a1-4786-acd8-42bfa8c1fb05