New Delhi, May 5 -- Indians have always trusted gold, but investing in it hasn't always been simple. From storage concerns to purity issues, physical gold comes with its own challenges.

To address this, the National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) on May 4 launched Electronic Gold Receipts (EGRs), a new process of buying and trading gold digitally.

But first, let's understand what EGRs are before moving on to how they work.

EGR is an electronic receipt issued against physical gold deposited with a Sebi-accredited vault manager. These are dematerialised securities and are tradable on the exchange like a stock, thus seamlessly integrating gold into the formal financial system. These EGRs represent real gold stored securely in vaults.

NSE,...