Three years ago, we had a problem accessing credit from commercial banks or microfinance institutions as we did not have adequate collateral. We also realized that most small businesses also faced the same challenge as we did and this resulted in many small businesses borrowing from informal lenders such as shylocks and online lenders at exorbitant rates or shutting down within their first two years of operations. This was as a result of commercial banks being too conservative in how they dealt with lending to the small businesses segment that had locked out entrepreneurs from access to credit facilities. In addition, we noted a number of people including our families and friends were looking for avenues in which to either build passive income or start or invest in a small business from their savings. This was a result of depressed income growth in salaries and wages for most low
and middle-income earners over the years and reduced returns in the easily available investment instruments such as shares, government securities, money market funds or real estate. We also noted that quite a number of people had lost funds to fraudsters promising to offer abnormally high returns on their savings.As a small business that could not obtain credit this led us to borrowing from our family and friends whenever we had a sales order that needed to be fulfilled. We realized that if we shared part of our profit, which was equivalent to what the banks would charge us to borrow funds, then we motivated more people to lend us their savings and earn a bit more than the traditional investment options. Marks Rate was borne out of the founders needs to not only seek short term financing for their business but to also grow the little savings we had left since we started our IT company. Marks Rate is an online crowd financing platform that enables small businesses to get specific financing for their sales orders or contracts. The funds they require is raised from individuals who are willing to commit their savings for a specific period and earn a higher rate of return by being part of a transaction. Marks Rate is building a financial ecosystem of entrepreneurs and savers who come together to help small businesses grow transaction by transaction.
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