A customer escrow account is a special escrow bank account that is separate from our traditional business account in which funds are placed on hold for the sole purpose of purchasing precious metal bullion coins or bars by the customer who deposited those funds. All funds deposited in customer escrow accounts are NEVER CO-MINGLED with any other company funds and remain the exclusive property of the customer who deposits them until such time they elect to use these funds to purchase bullion. Purchasing physical precious metals is unlike most conventional investments. It is portable, liquid, physical money and unique to any other asset on the planet. Clients who seek physical precious metals are traditionally interested in long term preservation of capital in a portable fashion that can be converted into their choice of currency at a later date in time. Most clients seek to preserve their purchasing power in gold, silver, platinum, or palladium bullion coins or bars. The price of any of these bullion products depends on the current live spot price of that particular precious metal and product during the time of purchase. The live spot price changes everyday minute to minute during traditional market hours. This can sometimes create challenges for investors who are looking to time the market and purchase physical precious metals during the dips in price. The slow pace of money transfers between banks and financial institutions exasperates this problem for medium to large investors who seek to invest in bullion. For example, if a client wants to purchase $50,000 in gold and silver bullion, he or she will write a check for $50,000, yet they are unable to lock in the price of their bullion until those funds are released from their banking institution after being deposited. Since brokers in our industry operate on razor thin margins, we are unable to run the risk of ordering products at the time of initially receiving payment without bank clearance due to the possibility of a check “bouncing” back because of insufficient funds. These unfortunate occurrences cause significant financial loss and make doing business impossible. With today’s regulatory environment it can take up to 7-10 business days for a check to clear. This often causes investors to miss great opportunities to buy physical bullion during market lows. At New Orleans Silver and Gold our segregated customer account program offers a solution to this problem for both the customer and broker. Now clients who are purchasing over $10,000 in gold, silver, platinum, or palladium bullion coins may participate in our customer escrow account program. The program allows clients to place deposits of capital in our customer escrow account to be used to buy precious metals by locking in prices at their discretion during normal trading hours. This is an intelligent “win-win” solution for all parties involved in physical precious metal bullion transactions.