D-r Valentina Grigorova-Gencheva graduated from the Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski" in 1990 at the major "Ancient and medieval history". She specialized further in ancient history and numismatics and defended a PhD thesis in the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, where she conducts a number of lectures in numismatics. She has worked as an expert for auction houses in Switzerland and Germany and as a deputy head of excavation works of the French Archaeological Institute in Argos, Greece. As of the autumn of 2001 she works with First Investment Bank, where she created and took the lead of the first of its kind in Bulgaria banking department, specialized in the area of precious metals trade, investment advice and numismatic expertise. As of 2008 she teaches a master class at the major "The cultural heritage - market and investments" in the Philosophical faculty of the Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski".
We interviewed D-r Valentina Grigorova-Gencheva about the opening of the first banking E-Shop for gold and numismatic products in Bulgaria in order to tell us more about this project.

What exactly is the Gold&Silver E-shop?
The "Gold&Silver" E-shop is part of the electronic statements and services platform "My Fibank" and shall be accessible through the my.fibank.bg portal not only by the Bank's customers, but also by all other interested clients.

What functionalities do the E-Shop offer and how the payments will be made?
The e-shop provides possibility to take a look at the products that are offered for sale as well as to filter the products by latest and most searched criteria. We will publish on periodical basis information about the publications about us in the print and electronic media as well as advices for investors and collectors. The payments will be made with a debit or credit card in amount up to BGN 30 000 or their foreign currency equivalent.

What items will be offered for sale in the E-shop?
The E-shop will offer the majority of the products, made by precious and other metals that are part of the First Investment Bank's portfolio. It will offer gold and silver investment bullions and coins and medallion bars, produced by the Swiss refinery PAMP as well as a number of very attractive and remarkable numismatic collection series. The customers will be able also to purchase the contemporary commemorative coins of the Bulgarian National Bank.

Are there any particular requirements to the customers in order to use the E-shop?
A registration in the site is needed for placing orders in the E-Shop. The customers of Fibank, who are already registered with the "My Fibank system, can use their login data. All other persons, including persons who are not customers of Fibank, have to go through the registration process and to fill in the data, requested by the system. The registration is completely free and is not bound with any further purchases or terms.

What guarantees will the customers have and will be there any difference between the online and the offline purchase of numismatics?
All offered products are accompanied by certificates and a large number of the offered gold bullions - the investment bullions of the Swiss banks UBS and Credit Suisse and those of the Swiss PAMP refinery are delivered in a special certificate packing. The customers have also a right to put a claim as detailed further in the general terms and conditions for use of the E-Shop.

Have you conducted a research on the customers' predispositions and are they susceptible to buy such products online?
The E-Shop was created in order to meet a lot of requests made by clients, belonging to the new "online" generation, as well as by clients, living in places, where First Investment Bank does not have an office. The increase of the online sales is a global tendency and Bulgaria does not make exclusion.

Taking into consideration the ongoing crisis, are you able to indicate any distinct tendencies in the behavior of the customers?
Definitely there is a growing customer interest to the investment gold and numismatic products in the recent years. Our turnovers in the crisis years marked a record and exceeded 10 000 000 BGN more than once. Over 170 000 deals have been concluded in the Fibank offices during the last five years. The investors demonstrate strong interest towards the purchase of gold, recognized as traditional safe heaven financial instrument for Bulgaria in crisis times. They also purchase silver, which we consider as significantly underrated and we are on the opinion that the sales of silver bullions and coins will increase in the forthcoming years.

You are stating that the "Gold&Silver" E-shop is the first of its kind in Bulgaria. Do the banks abroad have such practice?
The transactions with precious metals take important part in the activities of a number of foreign banks. A lot of such banks as our partner bank UBS in Switzerland not only maintain e-shops, but also organize online and other auctions for precious coins. Globally there exist also specialized companies that are not banks but are working in the field of investments and numismatics. On one side they are investment experts and on the other they are also numismatics experts. Such companies also organize at least twice per year auctions for trade of coins with investment and numismatic value. The online trade is extremely popular and practiced by these companies in order to avoid the existing time restrictions.

Do you expect such service to be offered also by other banks on the Bulgarian market?
Such possibility cannot be excluded. First investment bank is a pioneer in the field of the precious metals trade in Bulgaria. Since 2001 - the year in which we started concluding deals with precious metals and up to now, the number of the dealers, offering bullions and coins, has significantly increased. Probably our activity will facilitate the initiation of similar activities in other banks that are already trading with precious metals items.