When creating an account on the Max Crowdfund website, you have to follow four steps where you need to leave some of your personal details. In this article, we will explain why we need this information from you when creating an account.
First of all, it’s good to know that we are under the strict supervision of the AFM (The Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets). So everything we do is required by the AFM. They oblige a company to know who is behind an investment, which is understandable because it’s about money. Sometimes it’s about large sums of money, so it’s important to know who is behind this money. As a platform, you obviously don’t want any fraud on your platform.
We often get the question why clients need to leave their personal details while opening an account on the Max Crowdfund platform. Opening an account on Max Crowdfund is like opening a bank account, but easier. First of all, you need to fill in some personal information like your birthday and the country you are in while filling the information in.
After the first step, you have to upload your passport and finish the KYC (know your customer) process by making a scan of your face. The reason why we ask for this scan is to avoid any identity fraud. It is also possible to send us a selfie with your passport next to your face. This step is really important while creating an account on Max Crowdfund.
The third step is to answer four compliance questions. These questions are to determine whether you are a US person and if you are a politically exposed person. If you are one of those two persons, you, unfortunately, can’t invest in any loans on Max Crowdfund.
The final step is linking your bank account to your MCF account. The reason we ask you to link your bank account to your account is that we will pay the dividend through the platform. By linking your bank account you can easily transfer the amount back to your own bank account.
After this, your account is approved and you can start investing in our real estate loans. For the first investment, you need to take an initial investor test. The AFM obliges every Dutch crowdfunding platform to take an initial (extensive) investor test when crossing the €500 limit in investments. Upon passing €5,000, €10,000, €20,000 and €40,000, another (shortened) investor test follows.
The test should identify whether the investor has the necessary knowledge and experience to understand the risks associated with the project, crowdfunding in general and the specific platform. The test must also show whether the investor invests a responsible part of their freely investable assets in crowdfunding. An inventory must therefore be made of freely investable assets. The AFM considers that a responsible party is, in any case, a maximum of 10% of the freely investable capital.
We are careful with your personal data at all times.
We made a video where we explain how the platform works. You can see it via the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zo80F1V_5pc
Written by: Julia van der Kooij
