Q&A: the Guardian questions the founder of ReGive

The mutual society offers savers huge returns. Are they too good to be true?
A pile of assorted banknotes
Is this a savings scheme that will make you a pile of money? Photograph: Alamy

These are some of the answers Abdul Muttakin Robbani of ReGive gave to the Guardian in response to our questions about the organisation.

The Guardian: Have you actually checked with the FSA that the exemption available to industrial and provident mutual societies covers the sale of your one-year bond?

Robbani: Only regulated products must be sold by a company authorised under FSMA, not products that are exempt such as ours. IPS legislation allows registered IPS' to sell shares and bonds directly to the public – directly itself without any prospectuses.

The Guardian: Please can you tell me what you are investing savers' money in, citing actual names of the social enterprises?

Robbani: We do not invest investors' funds in any social enterprises. We do not lend this money nor do we put it at risk. Our operational structure is different to banks.

The Guardian: Can you tell me how much money you have taken so far?

Robbani: We can – but this is not something we wish to disclose at this stage as bond applications are still being processed and the figures might be incorrect (overstated or understated). We only launched the bond two weeks ago and will close it when we deem appropriate. At that time, we will wait for a few weeks (past the 14 day cooling-off period) before we state how much we have raised.

The Guardian: Are you willing and able to give people their money back if they want to withdraw it now?

Robbani: Of course.

The Guardian: You said that if ReGive folded, administrators would be able to get all the money back immediately and repay it to savers. How would that happen?

Robbani: See answer to question two, above, and also below [this refers to part of the email which Robbani has asked the Guardian not to publish].

The Guardian: Why did the Redaid website show that it had a relationship with ReGive when Redaid closed on 14 December and ReGive was registered on 21 December?

Robbani: The team at ReGive worked under Redaid as its social investment arm for many years. The team adopted the name ReGive officially in anticipation of being spun off as an independent entity well before it registered with the FSA. You will see that before the FSA registration, there is no record of ReGive doing anything in the public domain. This only started recently, after ReGive was registered and after we developed our operational structure.