[dropcap]T[/dropcap]o observe the company’s 26th anniversary, the Financial Investment and Consultancy Services’ (FICS) team has committed to helping more Saint Lucians save and make smart financial decisions. On Monday March 19, FICS launched a new product: Jumbo Mortgage Finance (JMF) at its Rodney Bay branch where Branch Manager Venetta Salton and Chairman Lorne Theophilis briefed existing and potential customers on the details.
The new mortgage package features 100% financing, attractive interest rates, land and house mortgages for up to 25 years, land loans for up to 15 years and built-in savings, amongst a long list of other benefits. “Take any loan – the purpose can vary; all you need to do is to give us the mortgage as security,” Salton noted.
Chairman Lorne Theophilus spoke to the STAR about FICS’s decision to offer customers this opportunity. “We look at people’s demands and at some of the challenges that are being faced out there. I mean, generally we have had a problem in the country where savings are concerned, so we decided to incorporate as much as we could. We give those clients who have supported FICS for the past twenty-five years the option of coming in and reviewing their loans on lower terms as well as to newer customers so we can extend the term of the loan and make the repayments a lot better for them,” he explained. Customers who partake, he says, at the end of their loans will reap from the savings component of the product, which has an interest rate of 6.25% to 7.2%.
FICS has in the past provided several investment and loan opportunitites to Saint Lucians. However, younger persons are recognized as being less inclined to partake. To encourage young people to think critically about their financial choices Theophilus offered, “Now is an ample time for a young person to want to invest in themselves, so beyond the regular mortgages which we can give for housing and for the purchase of land, there are other things you can get into: you can get into regular savings for the sake of going to school, you can get into savings for the sake of eventually getting the downpayments which are necessary to build or acquire land, or you can get into general savings packages in addition to the slew of other services that we offer.”
One existing FICS customer gave an impromptu testimony during Monday’s gathering, regarding her experience with the company. She explained, “… I was just telling my colleague my savings with FICS is going to mature in 2030 so, by that time [I will] accummulate a good bit. With that money, if you have an existing loan with them, you can decide, ‘OK, I’m taking this money that has accummulated and paying it towards the loan,’ which is going to reduce it significantly, or clear it off! Or you can decide, ‘I’m going to keep it or put it in an FICS investment.’ So there are so many options that one has.”
A second customer chimed in, “I have dealt with other banks . . . and I must say, it is about five years since I have dealt with FICS now, and I can vow to anybody sitting here, FICS is the best.”
The financial institution encourages members of the public to visit or call either of its two branches for more information on their existing services or the newly added Jumbo Mortgage Finance.
