There are no costs associated with subscribing or for investing through the platform. However, For the pilot we will be passing on transaction charges to investors. These costs are between 2-3% of the transaction amount.
At WEKA you can make a payment with a credit card (VISA and Mastercard).
For the #WEKA 100 pilot investments there is a flat investment amount of £100.
At WEKA you invest in GBP. You pay in GBP and get repaid in GBP
We adhere to strict safety requirements with regards to private and payment details and all sensitive data is sent through an encrypted connection (ssl). Also, data is stored (encrypted) in a secured facility provided by AWS: the world largest hosting service. Customer documents can only be retrieved by a secured connection and multi-factor authentication.
We work with our local partners and Companies to minimize exchange rate risks. As we grow, we are also looking into the possibility of hedging currency rates.
We want to be the cheapest alternative for companies that need funding. Providing meso finance to entrepreneurs in often rural areas is a very labor-intensive process. It is comparable with the cost structure of microcredits. A huge number of loans with a relatively small size puts quite some administrative pressure on local partners. Also, these loans have to be monitored and obviously repayments have to be collected at the right time at the right place. Furthermore, partners have to pay local taxes and they have to take a provision at their balance sheet for possible non-repayments.
Since our SMEs do not have access to micro credits or bank loans, they often need to borrow from 'loan sharks' that may charge more than 100% interest per year. Even if they had access to micro credits, they would still be paying 30-50% annually. According to the New York Times (2010), the global average interest rate for microfinance loans is 37%.
On average, our SMEs pay around 1-3% interest per month.
We work with our local partners to screen applicants thoroughly. At a minimum, the potential client must be or have:
Small and medium sized enterprises, 2-100 employees, in the area of farming, retail, wholesale, production or services. Applicants should have a 'moral compass' and have to prove they want the best for the enterprise, people, the community and the environment.
Yes. Even though research on the impact of loans is very time consuming, our local partners execute impact studies. Apart from that we ask all our partners to enter the expected impact when uploading a new loan request. Finally, WEKA also executes their own research on the impact of investments.