Gregersen’s first Singapore bullion business began from under his bed. He stashed silver, though not much of it, and trades took place at his neighborhood train station as he tested for local demand.

Almost 17 years later, the German-born former bank data architect owns a six-story, 180,000-square-foot mega-vault with enough room to house about 10% of the world’s annual gold supply and 30% of yearly silver supply. Now, the business has not only outgrown his bedroom but the local clientele, and he’s selling more space to foreign investors who want their bullion stored somewhere farther away.

Gregersen isn’t alone in benefitting from this trend. Banks and precious metals dealers in the city-state say a growing number of wealthy American, European and Middle Eastern investors, unsettled by wars, government debt and political uncertainty at home, are looking to diversify where they hold their gold. Rich overseas investors are sending their metal to Singapore, seeking something that the precious metal cannot provide on its own: a reassuring place to keep it.

Private gold holdings in Singapore have surged about 16-fold from 2014 to over 800 metric tons last year, with a majority of the increase coming from Europe, according to estimates by bullion dealer J. Rotbart & Co. The company forecasts that to grow further this year and next.

“Old wealth families who were holding physical gold in other jurisdictions are moving some part of that to Singapore,” said Manish Tibrewal, co-founder of Singapore-based multi-family office Farro Capital, which provides financial advisory services to ultra-high-net-worth families. “The other set of families who had never bought physical gold are now buying that either through private banks or directly through bullion dealers” to store in the city-state.

Singapore is working to turn that shift into business. Banks, including Nomura Holdings Inc. and Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp., are adding services to trade and hold the metal there. Government authorities are building infrastructure to make the country a bigger bullion market.

Interest in gold has risen over the past few years after central banks’ accelerated bullion purchase in 2022 helped kick-start a multi-year rally. Gold’s appeal as a hedge against mounting government debt and geopolitical uncertainties has endured despite prices coming under pressure recently.

Singapore can store at least 2,200 tons of gold in two privately operated, high-security vaults, according to data from the operators. That includes 500 tons at The Reserve, as Gregersen’s vault is known, and at least 1,700 tons at Le Freeport, a repository sometimes known as Asia’s Fort Knox. Le Freeport has been facing rising demand for gold storage in recent years and its basement vault is nearly full, the operator said in an interview in May.

Gold holdings by clients in Gregersen’s storage program have tripled since the start of 2020 to 8.6 tons in September. About 90% of that is foreign clients, according to company data. He built his vault on hopes of filling it over decades to come, he said.

The appeal is partly imagining what could go wrong elsewhere. He said some worry about wars or economic distress, as well as political and fiscal stability in countries like the US. They see Singapore’s wealth and defense capabilities as a reason to trust it with assets that they may not need for decades, he said.

“People who want to store gold long-term – 30 or 40 years – usually like to find a country that is wealthy, has no impending pension system crisis, and a country which is defended,” Gregersen said in an interview at The Reserve. “Singapore is like that.”Dealers describe similar conversations. Richard Wang, Singapore head of J. Rotbart & Co., said web inquiries from Western clients have tripled over the past year. The most interest came from the US, followed by Canada, the UK and Australia. Prospective clients raised concerns over the US fiscal deficit and political uncertainty.

David J. Mitchell, founder and managing director of dealer Indigo Precious Metals, said demand for ounces from European and American high-net-worth individuals has accelerated by about 25% over the past year. Another Singapore-based precious-metals platform, Gauld, said about 40% of its Europe-based clients have either moved some gold from Switzerland to Singapore or selected Singapore for new purchases. The firm said some clients have reconsidered Switzerland after the freezing of sanctioned Russian assets altered their view of its neutrality.

The Singapore government is seeking to capitalize on that momentum as it vies with Hong Kong to establish itself as a key gold trading hub in Asia. In June, officials announced that the Singapore Exchange Ltd. will start an over-the-counter clearing system for gold by the end of 2026. The Monetary Authority of Singapore also said it will introduce vault services for foreign central banks and sovereign entities. Singapore also expanded tax exemptions this year for eligible funds and family offices investing into physical investment precious metals.

“You can trust Singapore to manage your wealth. This is where the wealthy people want to put their assets,” said Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong, speaking to Bloomberg TV on the sidelines of the Bloomberg New Economy Forum 2026 in New Delhi, India.

Still, the inflows are small by the standards of the global bullion trade. Singapore’s gold imports grew 44% as of August this year to 171 tons, according to Trade Data Monitor. London, the world’s dominant bullion hub, has nearly 60 times that in storage, mostly as reserves from central banks. Bullion inventories in warehouses linked to the Comex futures exchange in New York were around 730 tons.

But for banks in Singapore, the direction matters more. Nomura began offering physical-gold custody in Singapore in response to client requests, including from the Middle East, according to Akshay Prasad, head of investment products and advisory solutions for its international wealth management unit.

Their interest in gold was driven by inflation concerns, uncertainty over long-term interest rates and central-bank buying, while confidence in Singapore’s governance determined where they want to keep it, he said.

“You generally want to buy it in good jurisdictions where you feel comfortable,” said Nomura’s Prasad in an interview. “Singapore played that role.”OCBC expanded into physical gold this year after the volume of holdings among clients of its private-banking arm, Bank of Singapore, grew more than 40% from the end of 2025. The bank said both domestic and overseas clients increasingly want to transact with Singapore-based entities rather than the US-based companies they previously relied on.

The rising number of service providers has also given wealthy investors more flexibility with their holdings. “Instead of buying and keeping the gold, they are also thinking about the possibility of buying and selling back,” said Lars Johansson, a consultant and a precious metal logistics veteran. Higher volatilities in gold prices mean that investors want to be able to cash out when they want to, he added.

Gregersen is ready for more foreign investors, he says. Having run out of space at his previous vault after a surge in buying during the Covid-19 pandemic, he accelerated building his current massive high security facility in 2024. He still has tons of space to store more precious metals.

“If you want to diversify, it’s good to be far away,” Gregersen said. “People are getting more interested to say, okay, Singapore is trustworthy. And if I want to store some physical, where do I put it?”