Monetary Metals Review 2026: Gold Lease Yields, Fees, and What Happens if a Lessee Fails

Monetary Metals & Co. is a real Delaware corporation in Scottsdale, Arizona, operating since 2012 with a lease program since 2016; it has filed 21 Form D notices across five entities, its three Bond LLC notices name Ashton Stewart & Co., a FINRA member with no disclosures, as placement agent, and AltStreet located no SEC, FINRA, Arizona or other state regulatory action, CFPB complaint or BBB complaint naming Monetary Metals in the sources searched (November 11, 2026), with the limitation that the SEC's enforcement pages returned unfiltered results to a scripted search and the Arizona Corporation Commission eDocket and bbb.org were not queried directly. It is not registered with the SEC or FINRA itself; it says its leases are not securities. The record also holds a seizure of leased gold in Turkey in January 2026 with no published quantity, a bond borrower (Akobo) restructured twice with an interest waiver while two FAQ answers with no cutoff date say 'zero late payments', and an open federal lawsuit with a counterclaim (Zein v. Monetary Metals & Company, D. Ariz.) whose pleadings AltStreet has not read. Legit is not the same as low risk: the product is lending your metal.

No. Nothing at Monetary Metals is a bank deposit, and no FDIC or SIPC insurance applies to metal, leases or bonds (Ashton Stewart's SIPC membership covers that broker's customer accounts, not a Bond LLC's debt). The company's own disclaimer says 'Be aware that leasing your metal may involve risk of loss' and 'some or all of your leased metal may not be returned to you'. The protections it describes are the lessee's insurance with Monetary Metals as loss payee, a company policy covering 'some, but not all' leases, corporate and sometimes personal guarantees and UCC filings; no policy, insurer or limit is published. Unleased metal is held by an affiliated series LLC at vaults the main pages do not name, in an allocated pool the company says is kept apart from its corporate assets; no bar list or vault account is published that a client could use to verify their own holding. The one disclosed seizure, at AgaBullion, has no published size, recovery or insurance outcome.

In ounces of the metal you lease, monthly or quarterly. The home page shows '3.93%' as the weighted average on active leases and '5.89%' across leases and bonds, as captured on November 11, 2026; live lease cards show 3.00% to 4.00% net to clients, and the two live bonds show 12.00% (Bunker Hill, silver) and 19.00% (Akobo, gold) for accredited investors. The same home page showed 3.12% in January 2025, 3.27% in July 2025 and 3.32% in October 2025 (Wayback). These are the company's advertised rates by date; the ounces actually paid on each deal are not published, and the rate a lessee or borrower pays is a third number (Bunker Hill 15% then 13.5%; Akobo's restated loan '22% per annum' per the borrower). Your dollar result depends on the metal price when the ounces arrive and when you sell.

The company says no: 'gold leases are NOT securities' and they 'are structured as true leases of personal property under law' (entity FAQ). It files nothing for them, is not registered with the SEC or FINRA, and offers them to non-accredited investors. The bonds are different: Rule 506 debt securities of Monetary Metals Bond I, II and III LLCs and of the company, for accredited investors only; the three Bond LLC notices name a FINRA member as placement agent and the company's own notices name none. AltStreet does not decide the legal question; the practical consequence is that for leases there is no filing to read, and the lease documents, lessee financials and loss record exist only behind the client login.

The company says it issues 'a completed Form 1099-INT' to US taxpayers and, in its article on the subject, that yields received 'are considered taxable as ordinary income in the year it is received', valued at 'the fair market dollar value on the date of receipt', and 'not deferred until you sell the metal'. The same site calls the program 'tax-efficient' and the entity FAQ says the income 'May be treated as rental income, or deferred if structured as like-kind', noting the IRS 'hasn't issued specific guidance on gold leasing'. Those are the company's statements. Whether ounces received for the use of metal are interest, rent or something else, what basis they carry, and how a later sale of those ounces is taxed (collectibles rates may apply) are questions for a tax adviser.

Metal that is not in a lease or bond can be withdrawn 'by completing a one-page form': sold to the company at the 0.40% to 0.75% spread, shipped to you as bullion (the company 'does not sell metal for direct delivery' but ships redeemed metal), or transferred to another storage account; no time limit is published, and dated forum and review reports describe two to three weeks for delivery. Metal in a lease 'must wait for the lease to mature', typically 12 months, and leases roll over automatically unless you opt out within five business days of the rollover notice. There is no secondary market for leases or bonds. Metal leased to AgaBullion has, per the company's January 2026 statement and a reader's October 2026 report, been out of reach since the seizure.

AgaBullion Kiymetli Madenler A.S., an Istanbul refiner and a subsidiary of DD Holdings, became a lessee in September 2023 ('the 52nd lease', 5% to clients, 'Over 95% of our clients are participating'). On January 9, 2026 Hurriyet Daily News reported Turkish raids on seven firms including AgaBullion and AgaHolding in a gold smuggling and export-incentive investigation. On January 23, 2026 Monetary Metals notified clients and on January 26 published a statement: 'some of the gold leased to AgaBullion was seized by the Turkish authorities', the rest 'is properly in AgaBullion's accounts', lease fees were 'paid through March' (no year given), the company 'carries supplemental insurance' and would file claims 'when and if appropriate', and further updates would go 'to impacted clients only'. Nothing further has been published; the AgaBullion deal pages return 404; a related lessee in the same group (DD Metals, renamed AgaOne) remains a live 3.50% lease; and FAQ answers embedded on the site with no cutoff date still say 'zero defaults and zero loss of metal'. How much gold was leased, how much was seized, how many clients are affected, whether anything has been recovered or written down and whether insurance has paid are absent from the record.

The funded-deals page names them: StoneX Financial Ltd. (silver, UK), Pietro Galliani Brazing S.p.A. (silver, Italy), Tajvi Gold and Diamonds, Jawhara, Kalyan Jewellers and DD Metals/AgaOne Commodities DMCC (gold, Dubai), Kalyan Jewellers US (New Jersey), Auvere (New York), Bunker Hill Mining (silver bond, Idaho) and Akobo Minerals (gold bond, Ethiopia), as captured on November 11, 2026; past deals include Scottsdale Precious Metals, Brite Metals, GoldSilver, Shine Resources, Quantum Metal, L'Orfebre and IGR DMCC. Releases add Bhima Jewels and Kavitha's in the UAE. Legally, though, your lease counterparty is an affiliate of Monetary Metals ('Agent and Lessee are affiliated parties') that subleases to the named business. For the bonds, the Bond LLC is the lender; Bunker Hill (renamed Bunker Hill Silver Corp. in November 2026) is the only borrower that files with the SEC, Akobo discloses through Oslo releases, and the borrowers under Bond I (2020) and Bond II (2022) are not named in any filing.

'The minimum to open an account is 10 ounces of gold, or 1,000 ounces of silver, or the USD equivalent' (FAQ, November 11, 2026), about $30,000 to $50,000 at recent prices per the bands on the company's own landing page; a shipment must also be at least 10 ounces of gold or 1,000 ounces of silver. No accreditation is required for leases. Bonds are for accredited investors, with Form D minimums of $20,000 (Bond I and II), $27,000 to $31,830 (Bond III) and $23,000 and $40,000 (the company's own debt notices). Partners such as OGold offer exposure from 'as little as 0.1 gram of gold', with that partner's own product between you and the lease.

They answer opposite questions. Vaulted sells allocated gold and silver at named vaults (Royal Canadian Mint, HSBC London) under a contract that says the metal cannot be pledged or leased, charges 1.8% each way and 0.4% a year, publishes Bureau Veritas bar counts and pays no yield; its risk is custodial. Monetary Metals charges no storage fee and a 0.40% to 0.75% spread and pays 3% to 4% a year in ounces on leases, because the metal leaves the vault for a jeweler's or refiner's inventory abroad under an affiliate's lease; its risk is the lessee's credit, foreign law and, as AgaBullion shows, seizure, with no published loss record. Holding bullion yourself has neither a yield nor a counterparty. The question is whether 3% to 4% in ounces is enough for lending the metal to a named business through a company that keeps the spread, holds your unleased metal through an affiliate and has not published the size of its one disclosed seizure.