High tech twist on cultural money management

By Diana Prieto-Bernal

Brothers Francisco and Luis Cervera are navigating today’s new economy with an old idea – tandas, or money pools. Tanda translates into “turn,” and refers to all the people who put money into a tanda having turns taking money out when they need it.

Tandas have long been used by Latinos to gather money in a pool that participants share with trusted family and friends. 

The Cervera brothers have created a company and online service named eMoneyPool.com. The firm has a marketing motto of “Leveraging the power of cooperation.”  Clients sign up on www.eMoneyPool.com and provide their bank information. They decide how much money they want to pay in and take out. Then they invite friends to be part of the tanda.

Francisco and Luis were raised in San Diego, California. From an early age the brothers were introduced to cundinas, a different name for a tanda. A typical cundina is composed of five participants each contributing $100 for five months. Each gets a turn at receiving $500 for one of those months, depending on their need for the funds.

Luis bought his first car with a cundina. As they were growing up they noticed that it was a good financial model because this method was helpful and encouraged financial discipline. Almost all cultures have their forms of money pools. Americans call them Christmas Clubs, Koreans know them as Kaes and in the Caribbean they’re known as Susu’s. The brothers say eMoneyPool.com eliminates the inefficiencies of the traditional version.

And in these days when banks and other money-lending companies are trusted less, these businessmen believe that the tanda model will find acceptance among people wanting to save and have access to money for large purchases.

ArizonaLatinos.com interviewed the brothers about their venture, which was among 16 socially focused businesses selected to participate in a local non-profit business-incubator known as Seed Spot.

In addition, Francisco was a recent guest at the White House. He was invited to take part in a White House Business Council along with a small group of minority business leaders across the country. The goal was to initiate conversations of how to stimulate growth in underserved minority communities.

Q: What is eMoneyPool.com?

A:  eMoneyPool.com is a modern version of a tanda. It’s connected to the Internet, your bank account and it reports to one of several credit bureaus. It’s even connected to your cell phone for better communication between members and unlike traditional tandas – this one is guaranteed by the company.

Q: How does it work?

A: It’s just like the tandas your mom used to do only better because it’s safer and more efficient. It’s a group of like-minded individuals who come together online to contribute money into a common fund, then each member of the group takes turns accessing the total lump sum. It’s like secure savings, but better because it reports to a credit bureau and if payments are on time it only increases your credit score while you save.

Q: Who qualifies?

A: We want to keep this model true to its roots, so no income or asset verification is needed. You qualify based on the social value in your community. eMoneyPool has a rating system for each user that allows your social value to increase as you make your contributions on time. As the user’s rating increases, more members of the community will trust them and they are able to access larger money pool sizes.

Q: What are the benefits?

A: There are many. Obvious benefits are the ability to access capital when you don’t qualify for traditional credit. There’s also the ability to save/plan for important events on your life. For example, weddings, school, vacations, business purchases, etc.  

(Another benefit is) the ability to establish your credit through eMoneyPool; we currently report to one of the four major credit bureaus, and by the end of this year we will be reporting to all four.

And it teaches discipline to save or plan for important goals.

Q: What are the different terms?

A: Initially the website allows joining based on your budget and rating within the community, in other words, your social value. The most common money pool is for $1,000, which requires 10 payments of $105. This payment can be made every other week or once a month depending on the terms of the group.

Q: How do you join a group?

A: Our system allows for Private and Public groups. Private Groups: Are people that you know personally (friends and family).  Public Groups: Are composed of people that you do not know personally, but that you can trust based on their social value in the community.

Example: Would you rather work with John who has a terrible rating or work with Carlos who has an excellent rating? The community will group together with the strongest payers.

A success story is our friend Ramon who is a personal trainer and owns his own gym. He is using eMoneyPool to buy his own equipment instead of leasing.

Anyone interested in joining eMoneyPool.com can take a free online webinar on the website that teaches them how to use the system. For more information visit eMoneyPool.com or call 1-800-570-1947.

Start saving today with www.emoneypool.com