The acronym “UPMA” will no longer be the main branding for the many reasons listed below. The new name is “Alpine Gold Exchange”. UPMA will still be seen, but will be less prominent. Members will always be able to access their UPMA accounts through upma.org. Most members will not notice the changes as they will be gradual and focused on the membership in Utah. There is no ownership change.
The name “UPMA” has an interesting history. In 2012 the Utah Precious Metals Association was formed by the Citizens for Sound Money. It was the latter group that worked to push the Legal Tender Act of 2011 into getting passed in Utah. The purpose of the Utah Precious Metals Association was to give people the ability to actually benefit from the law that was passed by offering legal tender gold and silver accounts to the membership.
In 2014 the name was changed to the United Precious Metals Association (vs Utah Precious Metals Association). As the offering became more popular some problems have arisen with the name. For starters many UPMA members are not aware that there are multiple entities involved with the UPMA offering. UPMA is simply a non-profit association that offers services from other providers to its membership much like the ‘AARP’ or other such associations.
The other involved entities are outlined in the UPMA member agreement and include “NAMX” as well as “Legal Tender Services”. “NAMX” or, the North American Monetary Exchange is a for-profit entity that sells metals to the UPMA membership and vaults the metals. “Legal Tender Services” is a law firm run by Larry Hilton and provides escrow services and some customer service to the membership. Larry Hilton serves as General Counsel to the UPMA and wrote much of the Legal Tender Act that was passed. He also served as the first Chairman of the UPMA board and continues to serve as general counsel for ‘NAMX’ which he founded for the purpose of raising money to support the popular UPMA offering.
On July 6th the sign on the building was replaced. People that live locally have no idea what “UPMA” is so it made sense to rebrand.
Over the past few years the membership has grown from a few thousand individuals to over 30,000 members. As UPMA continues to grow there are some challenges that are evident when using the acronym “UPMA” as the main branding. Have you tried Googling it? Upma is a popular Indian breakfast dish. Also, it is a 4 letter acronym which may be difficult for people to remember and carries little meaning unless you know the entire name. There is also the “United PostMasters Association” that also goes by UPMA. While the United Precious Metals Association is a non-profit, NAMX is not. The UPMA.org website being a '“.org” website confuses members that expect it to be a for-profit entity. We have had hundreds of calls from members expressing confusion about which entities are involved and who is serving what role. We want it to be clear that the United Precious Metals Association is being serviced by Alpine Gold Exchange and Legal Tender Services.
(See the Member Agreement)
UPMA isn’t changing its name but the branding for the company servicing the UPMA offering is going to change. NAMX is changing its name to “Alpine Gold Exchange” and “Alpine Gold” as it is an exchange for gold in Alpine, Utah. UPMA.org will continue to work as it will redirect to “AlpineGold.com” starting on Kuly 21st.. The sign on the office building has been changed to “Alpine Gold Exchange”. There is no ownership change or organizational change. The goal is to make UPMA more popular by having a less confusing name.
Members can expect to continue to see “UPMA” throughout the site and members will still belong to the United Precious Metals Association. It is simply the company servicing the UPMA that is changing brands.