Promises of military-grade security, 24/7 access and even the ability to buy and sell gold and silver bullion under one roof are just some of the characteristics that have been drawing the ultrawealthy — and their precious goods such as jewelry and watches — to modern vaults in many parts of the world.
“London remains the anchor, marrying custodial tradition with Mayfair-grade biometric sophistication, but a whole constellation is forming,” said Christopher Sanderson, the co-founder of the Future Laboratory, a trend forecasting service in London. “Geneva’s freeport holds an estimated $100 billion in art. Dubai is building bunker-grade facilities at a breathtaking pace. Hong Kong is ascending as Asia’s favored jurisdiction.”
What has been the unique selling point of operations such as UltraVault in New York City and Terrada in Tokyo? “These spaces are converging with wealth management itself,” Mr. Sanderson said. “Clients store a Klimt alongside a cryptocurrency ledger. In essence, the vault is becoming a private museum of capital — fewer things, better protected, more meaningfully held.”
There is more to be held. As figures from the International Tax Observatory in Europe show, the world’s billionaires had $4.5 trillion 15 years ago. Today, they have $20.1 trillion. And the growth of their holdings has been growing.
The Reserve, an onyx-sheathed fortress near Singapore Changi Airport, promotes itself as one of the world’s highest capacity vaults. And its clients also may use the Onyx Room, a private dining space designed to seat 40 with a rooftop garden.
“Construction took about four years,” said Gregor Gregersen, the chief executive of the Silver Bullion Group, a retailer and vault supplier that owns the Reserve. “Phase 1 of the facility was completed in late 2024.”
The facility totals 180,000 square feet on six levels, which are marketed as housing 12,500 reinforced safe deposit boxes and the ability to store as much as 500 tons of gold bullion and 10,000 tons of silver. And all that, Mr. Gregersen said, is kept safe by multiple layers of security, including biometric checks on visitors, vibration sensors, lasers and more than 400 closed-circuit security cameras.
“The facility is designed to balance security with a premium client experience and, most importantly, transparency,” he said. “Visitors, for instance, have an overview from the fifth floor viewing platform into the Safe House Silver Vault, a vast central vault room.”
Mr. Gregersen said the rental of safe deposit boxes at the Reserve had been growing — with monthly costs ranging from 195 Singapore dollars to 925 Singapore dollars, or $150 to $715. (In comparison, a commercial bank such as Metro Bank on Piccadilly in London has monthly charges from 21.25 pounds to 66.75 pounds, or $28 to $88.)
But he added that the Reserve’s real growth — nearly $1 billion in sales during the past 12 months — has been from its STAR program (Safe, Tracked, Allocated and Remotely Accessible), which offers gold, silver and platinum sales and storage services.
“Those with tangible assets are increasingly drawn to a jurisdiction like Singapore that is politically stable, wealthy, respects property rights and has a strong rule of law,” he said.
Mr. Gregersen, like the executives at other facilities interviewed for this article, refused to disclose how many customers the facility had. But, he said, most are based in the United States, followed by Europeans and Australians, with Singaporeans accounting for just 10 percent.
The Next Step
Vaults1 — part of CHS Investment Group, an investment development and management group with headquarters in Vilnius, Lithuania — opened its first location there in 2020.
According to its managing director, Vilius Makauskas, the move was made to fill Europe’s growing need for independent, modern, high-security vaults operating around the clock and outside traditional banking systems. It has a network of safe deposit box facilities, including four in Lithuania; one in Riga, Latvia; and two in Spain, in Valencia and Madrid.
In April, the group opened its latest outpost on the tree-lined Via Vincenzo Monti in downtown Milan.
With a total of 807 square feet of space on two levels, the facility is marketed as having state-of-the-art security infrastructure in a refined, contemporary environment.
“Milan was a natural next step for Vaults1,” Mr. Makauskas said. “As one of Europe’s leading luxury and financial capitals, the city brings together a high concentration of local and international U.H.N.W.I.s [Ultra High Net Worth Individuals], alongside a globally recognized jewelry and watch culture.”
In London
Much like the Reserve’s private dining option for customers, V.I.P. clients storing valuables at IBV International Vaults London are offered perks such as chauffeur-driven car service and afternoon tea at the Dorchester, the hotel directly across Park Lane from Stanhope House, a Grade-II listed property that became an IBV vault in 2020.
The business initially was founded in 2004 in Cape Town by Ashok Sewnarain and now, in addition to London, has seven vaults across South Africa and one in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Each is marketed as having safety features such as iris recognition, fingerprint access systems, steel-lined walls and a secure control room.
“The glass is designed to withstand an AK-47 rifle attack,” said Sean Hoey, the managing director of the London vault and IBV Gold, its gold, silver and precious metals sales operation, “therefore, bullets wouldn’t even scratch the surface.”
He noted that there had been a sharp increase in client inquiries for jewelry storage, coinciding with recent global surges in the price of gold, silver and platinum.
The Vault Room, the largest of the facility’s three chambers, is said to contain about 500 safe storage boxes in nine sizes (the management declined to disclose the exact number of boxes or the site’s capacity).
But as the site’s smaller boxes are sold out, Mr. Hoey said, some office space is being converted and, when it is completed later this summer, would expand the vault’s private safe storage capacity by 60 percent.
Fueling Growth
Such demand for safe deposit boxes is part of a wider trend. According to a report by Allied Market Research, a research and consulting operation in Portland, Ore., the safe and vault market was valued at $8.6 billion in 2023 and is projected to reach $18.7 billion by 2032.
“In London at least,” Mr. Hoey said, the closure of commercial banks — or the discontinuation of their safe deposit operations — has gone in the private vault sector’s favor.
He noted that headline-grabbing robberies in the British capital — such as the 2015 Great Hatton Garden heist involving an estimated £25 million worth of jewels that prosecutors called the largest robbery in English legal history — also had led to a loss of confidence in traditional vaults and the growth of more secure facilities.
And in recent years, he added, those facilities have found even more business in renting safe deposit boxes on a short-term basis to wealthy visitors as well as residents spooked by the continuing rise in street robberies of small objects such as luxury watches.
“Luxury watches have become ‘underworld currency’ — portable and anonymous, with over 5,180 stolen in London since 2022 and barely 1 percent of perpetrators brought to justice,” said Mr. Sanderson of the Future Laboratory.
Jewelry and watch industry figures who travel also consider security issues.
“Whether I’m attending a trade fair, sourcing gemstones, meeting clients or visiting auctions,” wrote Keira Wraae-Stewart, the founder of Aetla, a fine jewelry gallery in Edinburgh, “there’s always a level of responsibility that comes with transporting those items.
“Knowing there’s a specialist facility available would take away a lot of the worry that comes with storing valuable pieces while traveling,” she said in an email. “It’s certainly something I can see the appeal of personally.”
Yet not everyone is attracted by the modern fortresses.
“There’s a certain glamour attached to these newer safe deposit box facilities, many of which show off their glitzy events on Instagram,” said Matthew Wildsmith, the founder and owner of Wildsmith Jewellery, from his showroom in London. “However, for those seeking something a little more discreet, I often recommend more established vaults such as Sharps Pixley Bullion & Safe Deposits on St. James’s Street and the vault within Selfridges department store on Oxford Street.”
He acknowledged, however, that someone traveling with three or four Rolexes might find the round-the-clock access — and competitive insurance rates — offered by newer facilities to be convenient.
“If anything,” Mr. Wildsmith said, “these modern vault facilities have highlighted to a lot of people that you don’t need a big fancy bank account in order to have a safe deposit box.
“As such, I do think they are doing good things in terms of promoting the safe deposit industry as a whole.”
