National Spot Exchange (NSEL) has extended the facility of physical conversion of e-Gold units to 1 gm gold coins to mark the completion of two years of the launch of e-Gold — India's first commodity investment product in demat form.

NSEL, promoted by Financial Technologies (FTIL), was earlier providing this facility in the denominations of 8 gms, 10 gms, 100 gms and 1 kg lots.

NSEL launched e-Series products, starting with e-Gold, in March 2010, to meet the growing demand among retails investors to divest part of their investment portfolio into commodities. The Exchange has since then added other commodities such as e-Silver, e-Copper, e-Zinc, e-Lead and e-Nickel over the last two years, e-Gold became an instant hit on the NSEL platform right from its debut, mainly because it catered to inherent demand for gold among Indians. This product has enabled the Indian retail investor to put his small savings in a weekly, monthly or yearly manner into precious metals such as gold and silver, yet without him having to deal with the hassles involved in handling physical gold.

There is also the additional benefit of getting physical delivery on-demand.

Moreover, e-Gold has offered far better returns compared to other gold investment options. Since the launch of this product, e-Gold has given a return of 67.03%, which is the highest compared to all other forms of investments in gold. In FY12, while equities as a measure of NIFTY, gave returns of only about -9.56% and some popular Gold ETFs gave around 23.32%, in comparison e-Gold gave returns of 26.41%.

According to Anjani Sinha, MD & CEO, NSEL: "The latest move to allow e-Gold delivery in 1 gm denominations is a benefit that is unique to this product alone. No other commodity investment product in Gold available in India has this facility. Certain other features such as transparent pricing, seamless trading and zero holding costs have made this product a preferred investment option for retail investors and HNIs. In e-Gold, investors have found a unique way to park their money in gold without having to worry about purity or physical security that is inherent to jewellery and physical bullion."

Currently, e-Gold comprises 17% of NSEL's total turnover in the FY12.