After the success of three crowdfunding offerings and $2,260,000 in actual raises; (Pinnacle Red Lobster ($1,834,000), Tropical Gyros ($254,000), Foot Care Rx ($172,000), ArawakX has now engaged over 3,000 active investors and 250 issuers on its platform. “Crowdfunding has proven to be a successful and viable market. People come up to us every day and are asking for more investment opportunities. We have been in direct contact with thousands of people and believe that there are some new markets that are in dire need of financial products,” says D’Arcy Rahming Jr. CTO and Co-Founder of ArawakX. The identified markets are a Savings Bond product and the need to convert real estate into business opportunities. “The challenge with Savings Accounts are zero to low interest rates and an abundance of fees. Our clients are saying to us that when they do not want to put savings in a traditional bank account because the fees often take away from the amount put in. In effect the banks are charging you to hold your money,” continued Rahming.
“What people are asking us for is a product that acts like a savings account, with a guaranteed interest rate that is easy to setup and access from their mobile phones while being free to setup and maintain. Then a person will know that if they put in $25 per month for each child over a certain period, they will be able to exit the account with a certain amount,” says Rahming. “The key word here is certainty. This is a different type of investment from crowdfunding, this kind of money is looking for safety and a guaranteed return. We have great confidence that the public will soon be pleasantly surprised when we announce this product with a key partner,” says Rahming.
The second financial product is an age-old problem that many Bahamian families face: People have land but very little cash, and investors have cash but not enough to buy a whole property outright. “Many Bahamians have died broke despite being rich on paper because they were not able to turn their land in business. By introducing a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT), we will help developers accelerate their plans in Nassau and the Family Islands.
“How REITs work is that a group of individuals get together and they buy a piece of real estate that has a business or rentals or some other commercially viable product on it. They then include the public and investors are then paid a dividend based on performance of the rents in the REIT. The risk is therefore spread amongst many and the project gets developed.
“We are very confident in our ability to deliver these products in that we already have the technology, the people, the processes and the regulatory know how. And we are also backed by the knowledge that this will affects tens of thousands of Bahamian families.” Said Rahming. An integral part of ArawakX’s mission is financial inclusion. Part of financial inclusion is financial education. “We have been going school by school, church by church, constituency by constituency to educate people on how they too can become owners in our society,” Explains Rahming. “What makes markets work is having many educated buyers and sellers, and having the financial products that create value for the investors and businesses that use them.”
Persons wishing to find out more about these new products can sign up for an account at ArawakX.com. It takes 7 minutes, is free to sign up, and has no monthly fees.
