What is segregated storage vs. pooled allocations?
Think Gringott’s versus Scrooge McDuck’s bank. Basically everything goes into the vault with Scrooge and everybody draws from the same pool, but everybody gets their own special storage vault or room at Gringotts. It’s basically how separated your personal share of the gold in the bank is going to be.
Segregated storage is where the bank buys and stores the gold for you under your name in your own location within the bank vault. Your gold is not mixed with other’s gold holdings. They are stored separately and titled to you directly. This is usually the most expensive gold storage option a bank offers. Pooled allocations are convenient for banks because it allows them to buy X amount of gold and split it among Y amount of customers. When you sell your gold they simply go the pool of gold they have and sell off what you are entitled to. The bank though does not store gold for you, but you are just a claimant on the gold they do have. The risk with a pooled account is the same potentially as a certificate. The bank may in fact not have 100% backing of gold for each gold depositor. So there is a chance that if you want to sell your gold the bank could have leased it out to someone else, etc. and it may not be there when you need it. Swiss banks commonly offer pooled “secure custody” acc
