The money, explained
Savings, loans and dividends
This is the page that says what happens to your money. Every figure on it is one of the union's published terms, printed with the condition attached to it. Nothing here is a forecast, and nothing here promises more than the terms already say.
What is on this page
The union's eight operational terms, grouped into the six things they actually govern, then a worked example and a section on what could go wrong. Read the last one even if you read nothing else.
- Weekly savings Saved daily, weekly or monthly, captured online, kept twelve months without a break. 30% a year
- Share capital What one share costs and the smallest holding that enters a project. ₦1,000 a share
- The quarterly stream A new stream of income every quarter, and who owns which part of it. 20 / 80
- Loans When an active member may first ask the union to lend. After 3 months
- Dividends Where a dividend comes from, when it is distributed and who qualifies. 31 December
- The Special Investment Package A separate arrangement, on its own terms, standing outside the savings. 15% a quarter
- A worked example The published terms with the multiplication done, and nothing added. The arithmetic
- What could go wrong The risks a member carries, said plainly and not softened. Read this
Terms four and five
Weekly savings, kept for twelve months
A member saves into the union and every entry is captured online. You may save daily, weekly or monthly. The union's own rhythm is weekly, because every cluster meets on Saturday at 5:00pm and the financial secretary enters the week's savings at the meeting.
Two conditions sit on those savings, and together they are the whole bargain. The savings must run for twelve months, and they must run uninterrupted. At the end of your financial year the union returns them to you with 30% annual interest.
Uninterrupted is the word to watch. It does not mean you saved a large amount; it means you did not miss. A member who puts in ₦1,000 every Saturday for fifty-two Saturdays has met the term. A member who puts in ₦20,000 a week for eight months and then goes quiet has not — and the interest and the dividend both hang on that same condition.
So the amount is your decision, and the only advice this page will give you is to choose a figure you can still pay in a bad month. Small and unbroken beats large and stopped.
Entries are taken every Saturday, 5:00pm
| Particular | Position |
|---|---|
| Ways a member may save, all captured online | Daily, weekly, monthly |
| Savings must run without a break for | 12 months |
| Interest returned on those savings | 30% a year |
| When the savings and interest are returned | At your year end |
| Who enters the record | Cluster secretary |
Which year end applies to you
The term says the interest is returned at the end of the member's financial year, and the union's own financial year ends on 31 December. If you join partway through the year, ask your cluster financial secretary in writing which date your savings year ends on, and keep the answer.
A break resets what you are owed
Missing your savings does not take away the money you have already put in. It takes away the 30% interest and the dividend for that year, because both are conditional on twelve uninterrupted months.
Term three
Every quarter, one new stream of income
Four times a year the union opens a new stream of income. The equity in each new stream is funded 20% by the cooperative and 80% by the members who subscribe to it.
| Who subscribes it | Share of equity |
|---|---|
| The cooperative | 20% |
| Members who subscribe shares | 80% |
| Equity in the stream | 100% |
Read that split carefully, because it cuts both ways. The union puts in one naira for every four the members put in, so members own the larger part of each stream — and they carry the larger part of the result, the good year and the bad one alike.
The streams run along one chain: food production, processing, packaging and distribution. What those businesses earn is what a dividend is paid from, which is why the dividend is not a fixed rate and never can be.
The size of any particular project, the date it opens and what it trades in are announced by the union when the project is opened. This page names no current project, because the union has not published one here.
Term six
A loan after three months of consistent savings
A loan is available to an active member after three months of consistent savings. Three months is thirteen Saturdays — the first mark on the union's line.
Active means what it says on your member record: you have registered, you are saving, and the savings have not been interrupted. The union lends to members who have shown they can keep a schedule, because the money being lent is other members' savings.
Loans and repayments are entered in the same weekly record as your savings. Your cluster financial secretary enters savings, loan, loan repayment and investment for each member each week, so your loan position sits beside your savings position and you can see both in your back office.
Taking a loan does not pause your savings. If you stop saving while you repay, you have interrupted the twelve months, and the interest and dividend go with it.
| Particular | Position |
|---|---|
| When a member may first ask | After 3 months |
| The same period, counted in Saturdays | 13 |
| What those three months must contain | Consistent savings |
| Who may borrow | Active members |
| Where the loan is recorded | Weekly, by the cluster |
Loan terms the union has not published
- Interest charged
- To be published
- Maximum loan
- To be published
- Repayment period
- To be published
- Guarantor
- To be published
- If a member defaults
- To be published
Do not sign until those five are answered
Ask the union office for them in writing and keep the reply. A loan whose interest, ceiling and repayment period you have not seen in writing is a loan you should not take — from this union or from anybody else.
Term seven
Dividends, distributed at the end of the financial year
Dividends are earned from the businesses the union trades in. They are distributed at the end of the financial year, 31 December, to members whose savings have been active and uninterrupted for twelve months.
A dividend is not a rate
This is the single most misunderstood line in any cooperative's rules, so here it is plainly. The 30% is interest on savings: a term the union has set itself, with a condition attached. A dividend is different. It is your share of what the union's businesses actually earned in the year. In a strong year it is larger; in a weak year it is smaller; and in a year where the businesses earn nothing there is nothing to distribute.
That is why no dividend percentage is published on this page in advance, and why you should be suspicious of anybody who quotes you one. If a person recruiting you promises a guaranteed dividend, they are not quoting the union's terms.
The eligibility condition is the same one that runs through the whole page: twelve months of active, uninterrupted savings. Shares alone do not carry it, and neither does the Special Investment Package.
| Particular | Position |
|---|---|
| Where a dividend comes from | The businesses |
| When it is distributed | 31 December |
| Who qualifies | Active savers |
| Savings they must have run, unbroken | 12 months |
| A rate fixed in advance | None |
Two payments, two different rules
At the end of the year an eligible member is due their savings back with 30% interest, and separately a dividend if the businesses declared one. The first is arithmetic on a published rate. The second depends on trade.
Term eight · Separate from savings
The Special Investment Package
The union publishes one further term: the Special Investment Package returns 15% quarterly. It is printed on its own ground here because it is a separate arrangement, and reading it as part of your savings would be a mistake.
| Particular | Weekly savings | The package |
|---|---|---|
| Published return | 30% a year | 15% a quarter |
| Period the return is stated over | A year | A quarter |
| Condition attached to it | 12 months unbroken | Not published |
| Builds the twelve-month savings run | Yes | No |
| Qualifies you for the dividend on its own | Yes | No |
Money placed in the package is not your weekly savings. It does not count towards the twelve uninterrupted months, it does not earn the 30%, and on its own it does not qualify you for the dividend. A member who puts money in the package and stops saving weekly has stepped off the savings term entirely.
Fifteen per cent a quarter is a high return by any measure, anywhere. That is not a reason to dismiss it and it is not a reason to rush at it. It is a reason to ask questions and to write the answers down.
Four questions to ask before you put money in
What trade produces 15% in a quarter? What is the minimum, and how long is the money held? What happens in a quarter where that trade loses money? And who signs for the answers? If they are not written down and signed, treat that as the answer.
The package — what is not yet published
- Return
- 15% quarterly
- Minimum amount
- To be published
- How long money is held
- To be published
- What the return is earned from
- To be published
- Whether capital is returned
- To be published
- How to enter
- To be published
Only the first line in that list is published. Until the other five are answered in writing, treat the package as an arrangement whose terms you have not been given.
A worked example of the terms
₦5,000 a Saturday, for fifty-two Saturdays
What follows is arithmetic on the published terms and nothing else: an amount saved every Saturday, fifty-two Saturdays kept without a break, and the 30% annual interest the union has undertaken to return. It is a worked example of the terms. It is not an offer, a projection or a promise.
| Particular | Amount |
|---|---|
| Saved each Saturday | ₦5,000 |
| Saturdays kept, without a break | 52 |
| Your own money, held by the union | ₦260,000 |
| Interest at the published 30% for the year | ₦78,000 |
| Returned at the end of the savings year | ₦338,000 |
Fifty-two Saturdays at ₦5,000 is ₦260,000 saved. Thirty per cent of ₦260,000 is ₦78,000. The two added together are ₦338,000. Every number in the table comes from that multiplication and from the union's published rate.
What this example is not
It is not a projection of what the union will earn. It is not a guarantee that the money will be there — see what could go wrong, below. It does not include a dividend, because a dividend depends on how the businesses traded and no rate for it is published. And it stops applying to you the moment you miss a Saturday.
If you want to check the arithmetic against a different weekly amount, the table below does the same three sums at five figures, the one above among them. Nothing else changes: the rate is the same published 30% and the condition is the same twelve uninterrupted months.
| Saved each Saturday | Saved in 52 Saturdays | Interest at 30% | Returned at year end |
|---|---|---|---|
| ₦1,000 | ₦52,000 | ₦15,600 | ₦67,600 |
| ₦2,000 | ₦104,000 | ₦31,200 | ₦135,200 |
| ₦5,000 | ₦260,000 | ₦78,000 | ₦338,000 |
| ₦10,000 | ₦520,000 | ₦156,000 | ₦676,000 |
| ₦20,000 | ₦1,040,000 | ₦312,000 | ₦1,352,000 |
Read this part twice
What could go wrong
Every honest money page carries this section. These are the risks a member takes on, in the plainest words we can put them in. If anybody in this union tells you they do not apply to you, take that as your warning and walk.
Your savings are not government-insured
The union is a cooperative, not a bank. Money saved here is not covered by the NDIC or by any other government deposit-protection scheme. If the union's businesses fail, there is no public fund standing behind your savings. That is true of every cooperative, and it is the first thing you should weigh.
The returns depend on the businesses trading successfully
The 30% interest and any dividend are paid out of what the union's businesses earn. Food production, processing, packaging and distribution are real trades with real bad years: a poor harvest, a mill that breaks down, a market price that collapses. A published term is a rule the union has set for itself. It is not a guarantee that the money will be there.
Breaking your savings costs you the interest and the dividend
The 30% and the dividend hang on the same condition — twelve months, uninterrupted. Break the run and you still have your savings, but you do not have the interest and you do not have the dividend for that year. This is the most common way a member loses money here, and it is entirely avoidable: save an amount you can keep up.
Your money is held for twelve months
Savings run for twelve months before withdrawal. Money you may need in the middle of the year — rent, school fees, a hospital bill, stock for your trade — should not be in here. Save what you can leave alone, and keep an emergency fund somewhere you can reach it.
A loan is still a debt
After three months of consistent savings you may ask the union to lend to you, and the money you borrow is other members' savings. The interest charged, the ceiling and the repayment period are not published on this site. Until they are, do not borrow on a handshake — get the terms in writing.
Nobody may promise you more than the printed terms
The terms are these: ₦1,000 a share, 100 shares to enter a project, 30% a year on savings kept twelve months unbroken, a loan after three months, a dividend on 31 December from what the businesses earned, and 15% a quarter on the Special Investment Package. If a person recruiting you offers anything else — a bonus for bringing people in, a doubling, a guaranteed dividend — they are not speaking for the union. Write to the office and report it.
What to do about all this
Do not take our word for any of it. Read the operational terms, ask the union office for everything this site marks as not yet published, and keep the answers. Start with an amount you would not miss, keep it running, and increase it only when you have seen the record work.
If a figure on this page ever differs from what someone tells you in person, the terms are what the union has published. Hold us to those.
Before you commit money, ask for these
- Legal name
- Requiza Cooperative Union, a branch of Requiza Empire
- Registration
- To be published
- Registered office
- To be published
- Where savings are held
- To be published
- Audited accounts
- To be published
- Officers
- To be published
- Financial year
- Ends 31 December
Read the terms, then start with one Saturday
The eight operational terms are the union's published rules and they are short enough to read in full before you commit a naira. When you are ready, register and bring your first entry to the cluster meeting.