India's Household Gold: Potential and Challenges of EGRs

India has a huge amount of gold stored in homes, more than the United States.

The government wants to turn this gold into a tradable asset called electronic gold receipts, or EGRs.

EGRs are like digital certificates that represent real gold kept in secure vaults.

Only a few vaults and few cities have the facilities to handle EGRs, so trading is slow.

Also, taxes and rules make it hard for people’s home gold to become EGRs.

If banks accept EGRs as collateral, people could borrow money more easily using their gold.

The success of EGRs depends on building better infrastructure and changing some rules.