SafeGold Gold Digitisation Scheme with BlueStone: How to Lease Your Old Gold Jewellery

Most Indian households have gold sitting in a locker like inherited jewellery, old bangles or a chain you no longer wear. That gold may appreciate in value over time, but it does not generate an ongoing income simply by sitting in a locker. SafeGold’s gold digitisation scheme with BlueStone changes that.

By visiting a BlueStone store, you can convert physical gold jewellery you already own into a digital gold balance and then lease that balance to earn approximately 4% per annum in grams of gold, paid monthly. Ownership of the equivalent quantity of gold remains with you throughout the lease.

This article explains exactly how the SafeGold-BlueStone digitisation scheme works, the leasing mechanics, and what you need to know before you walk into a BlueStone store.

What Is SafeGold’s Gold Digitisation Scheme?

SafeGold launched a gold digitisation scheme in partnership with jewellery retailer BlueStone, which enables consumers to visit retail outlets to digitise their gold jewellery and lease it back to jewellers. The scheme works in two stages:

Stage 1: Digitisation

You bring your physical gold jewellery to a BlueStone store. The gold is weighed and assessed for purity. The equivalent value is converted into a SafeGold digital gold balance in your account, measured in 24K grams.

Stage 2: Leasing

Once digitised, you can lease your gold balance through SafeGold’s Gains feature, earning approximately 4% per annum in grams of gold, paid on the 1st of every month.

The strategic logic is that leasing digital gold to jewellers reduces imports. Once started on a bigger scale by allowing people to lease gold sitting in their houses, this will have a more direct impact on India’s $72 billion annual gold import bill.

For you as an investor, old jewellery that was generating zero return now generates approximately 4% p.a. in additional gold on top of gold’s price appreciation.

Why BlueStone? The Partnership Context

BlueStone is India’s digital-first fine jewellery brand, founded in Bangalore in 2011. It has more than 150 retail stores nationwide and operates across India’s major cities.

BlueStone was already known for its “Big Gold Upgrade” programme where customers exchange old gold at BlueStone stores for higher-caratage equivalent value. The digitisation scheme builds on this existing retail footprint. BlueStone stores act as the physical touchpoint where old jewellery is received, assessed, and converted to a digital balance.

For SafeGold’s MD Gaurav Mathur, the BlueStone partnership is the first step in a bigger ambition: “Over the next 2–3 years, leasing will probably be a much bigger part of the business than the selling of digital gold.”

SafeGold is in conversations with other jewellery makers to expand the digitisation scheme beyond BlueStone.

How to Digitise Your Old Gold Jewellery at BlueStone: Step by Step

Step 1: Find your nearest BlueStone store: BlueStone has 150+ stores across India. Visit bluestone.com to find your nearest location. Bring the gold jewellery you want to digitise.

Step 2: Gold assessment: At the store, your jewellery is weighed and tested for purity using standard assaying methods.

This gives you the exact gram quantity of pure gold equivalent in your piece, the basis for your digital balance.

Step 3: Conversion to SafeGold digital balance: The assessed pure gold value is converted into a 24K SafeGold digital balance and credited to your account (linked to your registered mobile number). Your physical jewellery is received by BlueStone.

Step 4: Activate gold leasing via SafeGold Gains: Once your balance is credited, log into SafeGold and activate the Gains leasing feature on your digital gold balance. Choose your jeweller and tenure.

How SafeGold Gold Leasing Works: The Mechanics

An individual can lease between 0.5 grams and 20 grams of digital gold under the scheme. The lease can be done for 30 days to 364 days.

Parameter	Detail
Minimum lease	0.5 grams
Maximum lease	20 grams
Lease tenure	30 to 364 days
Yield	~4% per annum in gold grams
Yield payment	Credited on the 1st of every month
Interest calculation	Paid in gold grams
Principal return	Gold returned at end of tenure
Borrowers	Pre-vetted, KYC-compliant MSME jewellers

Who borrows your gold? 

Gold is borrowed by small and medium jewellers who need working capital to source gold for their business. For these jewellers, leasing from SafeGold (at ~4% yield to you) is cheaper than bank credit at 10–12%. By leasing out gold to jewellers, digital gold holders earn approximately 4% in addition to gold price appreciation.

The return in practice: If you lease 10 grams of digitised gold at 4% per annum for one year:

• Estimated annual gold yield = 10 × 4% = 0.4 grams of additional gold
• Monthly yield = approximately 0.033 grams credited to your account on the 1st
• At year-end: your principal 10 grams is returned + you’ve received 0.4 grams additional

On top of that, if gold prices rise during the lease period, the value of your 10-gram principal also appreciates.

What Happens to Your Jewellery After Digitisation

Your jewellery is accepted by BlueStone as part of the digitisation process and converted into an equivalent quantity of digital gold. The original jewellery is not preserved as an individual item for return. What you hold is a digital claim to an equivalent quantity of 24K gold, backed by SafeGold’s standard custody structure: Brink’s vaults, Vistra ITCL trusteeship with first charge, full insurance.

This is important to understand. You cannot get the specific piece of jewellery you brought in back. You receive a digital balance that can be:

• Held as digital gold
• Leased to earn 4% p.a.
• Converted to certified Gold Coins or Bars for physical delivery
• Jewellery exchange at Tanishq or CaratLane

If you want your original piece back, this scheme is not for you. If you want that idle gold to work, this converts a static asset into an active one.

The Leasing Risks: What SafeGold Discloses

SafeGold’s own disclosures are clear on three risks:

1. Unregulated product: Digital gold leasing is an unregulated product. In the event of any loss or fraud, a customer may not be able to seek redressal from a regulatory body such as SEBI or RBI. 

2. Liquidity lock during lease: Once the gold is leased to a jeweller, you cannot sell it before the lease expires. The digital gold is locked in for the period. Customers cannot cancel the lease before its expiry. However, if a jeweller cancels early, the leased gold and yield earned to that date are returned to your account.

3. Jeweller creditworthiness: Jewellers are pre-vetted and KYC-compliant before being listed on SafeGold’s leasing platform. However, the underlying credit risk rests on the jeweller’s ability to return the gold at the end of the tenure.

These are real risks. The 4% yield compensates them for the same reasons any yield instrument compensates for credit and liquidity risk.

For a detailed breakdown of how the safety and trustee structure specifically protects your gold even during leasing, read Is Digital Gold Safe? Security Storage Explained.

Is This Better Than a Gold Loan?

Many families with idle gold take a gold loan, pledging jewellery to get cash at 10–15% interest. The digitisation scheme is structurally different:

Aspects	Gold Loan	SafeGold Digitisation + Leasing
You receive	Cash (and pay interest)	Gold grams (yield)
Your gold stays	Pledged, inaccessible	Digitised, leased, earnable
You owe	Repayment with interest	Nothing; you’re the lender
Risk	Losing the piece if you default	Jeweller credit risk (pre-vetted)
Return	Negative (you pay interest)	~4% p.a. in gold grams

The gold loan may be suitable if you need cash urgently. The digitisation-leasing scheme makes sense if your goal is to make idle gold productive without spending money.

Conclusion

SafeGold’s gold digitisation scheme with BlueStone is one of India’s first organised retail programmes that lets you walk into a retail store with old gold jewellery and have it assessed and converted into a digital gold balance that can earn 4% per annum in gold grams, paid monthly. The gold doesn’t sit idle. The jeweller gets cheaper capital than a bank loan. And India’s $72 billion annual gold import bill gets marginally smaller with every gram that moves from household lockers into the leasing pool.

If you have old jewellery that offers no resale value, this scheme converts that idle asset into an income-generating asset. Visit your nearest BlueStone store to begin the digitisation, then activate leasing on SafeGold Gains.

Frequently Asked Questions