Welcome to the Reserve Bank of Fiji Public Awareness column. In our April article, the concept of investing was introduced. This month, we examine some investment products that are available to you in Fiji.

There are a variety of investment choices that have the same characteristics. For this article, we will focus on 5 broad classes of investment products: –

1. Deposits;
2. Money Market Instruments (Short-term)
3. Shares;
4. Managed Funds: and
5. Fixed Income Securities (Long-term).

Deposits

Cash investments are investments where an investor lends money to someone else (usually commercial banks) for an agreed period of time and at an agreed interest rate. Usually, cash investments are for a period of less than a year. At the end of the agreed period, the investor gets repaid the amount he/she originally lent (principal) plus interest (the cost of lending money).