The boss of a financial services firm in London is offering his employees the chance to get paid in gold as part of a new trial.
You'd think getting remunerated with big lumps of gold might be a bit impractical, or even a regression from the imaginary virtual numbers based system most of us use these days, but Cameron Parry, CEO of TallyMoney, reckons it makes no sense for him to continue paying his staff in pounds.
Parry – who employs more than 20 members of staff – is implementing the trial in the hope of helping his team during the difficult times we're living through at the moment.
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Speaking to City A.M., he explained: "With the cost of living crisis going from bad to worse, it didn't make sense to continue offering pay hikes in pounds when its value is being eroded further with every passing day. It was like putting a band-aid over an open wound.
"Gold is a time-tested inflation hedge and has maintained its purchasing power for millennia.
"At times like these, when conventional money is steadily losing its buying power, gold offers people the best chance of keeping ahead of inflation."
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Parry piloted his new scheme with some senior members of staff and will soon offer it across the company, though employees will be free to continue getting paid in pounds if they so wish.
Those who opt in won't actually be dragging a sack of gold home with them at the end of each month, rather the exchange rate for gold to pounds will be taken into account, with PAYE taxes applied as normal.
The gold is denominated in 'tally', with one tally equivalent to one milligram of gold. For example, a gross monthly salary that was previously £4,000 (£3,261) would be defined as 82,000 tally gross – equivalent to 82,000 milligrams of gold – on the payslip.
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Honestly, is anyone else having difficult wrapping their heads around money these days? Petrol prices are unrecognisable, people are apparently making fortunes mining for cryptocurrencies (whatever the f**k that means), and now some financial firm is paying employees in gold.
I, for one, am lost – but Parry seems to have a clearer picture of the situation.
He said: "There are big question marks over the future of central bank-created currencies right now, and while cryptocurrencies have been grabbing all the headlines in recent years, to a lot of people the tried and tested appeal of gold just makes more sense."
Jake Massey