By Babajide Komolafe

Consider the Risk
A major factor you must consider before you invest your money is Risk. Risk is the possibility of something bad happening.
Most investments come with a certain degree of risk. This is because life is full of uncertainties and human beings are unpredictable.

COVID-19 is a good example. When the pandemic happened and economic activities were suspended or reduced to the barest minimum, many good, profitable, well-managed businesses were severely affected.
So, before you invest your money, you must consider the risk. You must consider the various ways investment can be negatively affected by global and national crises, political developments and government policy.
You must also consider how your money will be affected and the possibility of recovering your money when things go bad. Many have suffered huge losses because they failed to acknowledge that things can go wrong.

Consider Reputation
Another major factor you need to consider is the reputation of the organisation or people behind the investment offer.
It takes time, resources and work to build a good reputation especially when it comes to offering investment services. People and organisations with reputation will seldom want to do anything that will destroy their hard earned reputation.
The following questions will help you to ascertain the reputation of the people or organisation behind any investment offer.
How long has the organisation been in business? Who are the owners and who are the people running the organisation? What is their history? How popular, accepted and respected is the organisation and its services? What are people saying about the organisation? You can get reliable answers to these questions by doing diligent internet search on the organisation.

Consider Relationship
Another factor is the opportunity for direct and physical relationship offered by the organisation to its customers. In this regard, you need answers to the following questions.
Where are the offices of the organisation located? Is there a customer relationship/management arrangement as obtained in banks? Are Relationship Managers, RM, assigned to customers? Can you as a customer call the RM or visit the organisation for enquiries and complaints? Is there opportunity for relationship, or are all transactions conducted via website, digital app or other non personal arrangement? You are taking a big risk with your money.
Remember MMM, which operated as an online platform, tagged ‘MMM Federal Republic of Nigeria (nigeria.mmm.net).

According to the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Commission, 3 million Nigerians lost N18 billion to the platform which operated mostly online with little or no physical office and staff on ground for investors to relate with. So beware!