I watched, like you, the documentary about the establishment of FNI and the collapse of the fund; the scope and losses suffered by depositors. Along with the discussion on this topic, this information promoted now came to my mind: “It’s easy to invest in the stock market yourself!” Many courses have been created about how easy it is to invest in the stock market, how you can do it yourself even though you are a doctor, programmer, teacher or call-center operator, you have basically learned at least 3 years in your field of activity, you work to obtain an income from your work and you will get rich by investing in the stock market yourself just by purchasing course x or y or watching podcast z. There are hours of discussions on YouTube or short videos on TikTok about stock market investments and the mirage of getting rich quick.
If you haven’t seen the documentary, I invite you to watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdjXv5SjLng&fbclid=IwAR37uMp1psfs8lxhBsVz0E3w08ZPJ0lNEPRW2mgrQhpm3pvSM97WjQHCfao
What is the truth?
With the pandemic, people didn’t spend as much, being forced to stay home and not needing to buy clothes, they kept a lot of money from one month to the next; they saved without intending to and as they stayed at home more, they had access to social platforms. There was plenty of content about investments, exploding this field, and the platforms that facilitated investments lowered the ceilings from tens of thousands of lei to a few thousand lei, even a few hundred thousand lei. People from different fields started to invest. As the market quickly recovered after the decline at the beginning of the pandemic, and those who acquired more money than they invested (double or even several dozen times) the quick enrichment corroborated with the ease and, at the same time, accessibility on the financial market became a kind of American dream.
People from different professions started to write/tell their personal experience and created courses, created accounts on all social networks and teach you how to invest quickly, easily and that it doesn’t matter what profession you have: “It’s easy to invest on the stock market!” Also, if you don’t know how or don’t have the courage, in exchange for a few hundred lei they teach you in individual sessions, but if you still lose money they don’t take responsibility, and if you sue them there are some legal tricks through which the law does not penalize them, because they didn’t make you invest in x or y but only showed you what they invested in; if you invested and lost, it’s your problem!
Investing in the stock market yes, it is accessible to everyone, it is easy to invest but you need experience. I also have an investment account – it was easy to open it and buy what I want, but what do I want, based on what do I buy? I am personally accredited by a professionalization institution in the market for investments in the capital market and consulting, but I remind you that it is risky. You need knowledge and experience to invest in the Stock Market – that is, to put part of your savings in stocks and obtain a passive income that will allow you to retire from work and support your children’s education. You need to know technical analysis and fundamental analysis – based on which you make the decision to invest and you need experience to see which one you like the most, what you want to achieve and what to base your strategy on. You need to have a personal strategy, a schedule in which you do this. Don’t forget that the stock market is closed at night and if you finish your schedule at 6:00 PM you have nothing to do on the stock market (if we are talking about the stock market in our country).
What does the stock market have to do with FNI?
The stock market is the regulated market and it is the market where it is safe to invest. Not every company is listed on the stock market and I am referring here to the main stock market. To get to the main stock exchange, you have to tick 7 criteria. If a company only ticks some of them, it is listed on the secondary stock exchange, and after meeting all the criteria, it is listed on the main one. These criteria are based on the safety and profitability of that company: the company must have been profitable in the past years, the company’s development strategy must be sustainable and growing.
FNI is an unregulated investment fund created on people’s greed. Some administrators invested depositors’ money, offered huge profits to a few of the depositors to increase confidence in the respective fund, then, when enough money was collected for the administrators, they bankrupted the fund, which led to huge losses for those depositors who even sold their homes to get rich.
What is the similarity?
Given that one is regulated and the other is not, well, I’m not referring to this aspect, but to the mirage of getting rich overnight, access to money, the ease involved in investing.
To invest, you need time to study the market. It’s not the ease of investment or its accessibility that denotes whether an investment is good or not.
In investing, you need to know human psychology because you can very easily fall into harmful financial decisions precisely because you have access. I believe that the ease of accessing the stock market is a problem for people who believe that they can invest without analysis and experience on the stock market and that they can secure their future. I’m not saying no, but there are very few people who take investing as a second job. There are people who are passionate about investing but do not assume that they will pay with time and money for this desire to invest. The problem is that not all those who invest assume that they will learn, lose to increase their experience to achieve financial independence or at least a satisfying passive income.
Lack of financial education
The lack of financial education in our country makes this field a well-paid, developing one and, like any field at the beginning, involves some risks, as it was after the revolution with FNI because people began to have access to things, to want money to buy them; the mirage of quick enrichment led to immense damage for many depositors, for an overwhelming majority of the population.
Investing on the stock market means saving large commissions paid to funds!
Another problem of the Romanian people is the rush to save money, but not in the way of keeping, after receiving income, an amount, but by not paying professionals for various services. Romanians prefer to change their own water pipes instead of paying a plumber, to install their own air conditioner or worse: their stove instead of calling a specialized person, a craftsman (which has led to the lack of specialists in such services) or some of them prefer to call “a boy” whether he is a friend or a neighbor or a relative to fix their stove and thus save money. This is how things are with investments. They prefer to save money from the commissions they would give to an investment management company and invest on the stock market themselves.
It is true that, in addition to saving commissions through personal, unprofessional management, the desire to invest on their own also comes from the fear of the private fund manager leaving with the money as happened with the FNI (National Investment Fund). I completely agree, but this distrust comes from the lack of information and financial education. What are those?
- a) The fact that since 2013 the ASF was established, which aims to supervise financial relations in the market and was created precisely to increase citizens’ trust in the financial system
- b) The total assets of a fund, the larger it is, the more it has access to certain financial instruments that require large capital and the existence of a group of investors who do not involve emotions in investing money, but only theory, and the theory is based on the experience of tens, hundreds of years of the financial company, including in crisis or war situations (that is, if it happened to be on the market at that time and there are companies including from the First World War).
You will find more about investments in the book: “Investment Methods”.https://www.e-learning.psihologiabanilor.ro/product/e-book-cum-sa-iti-gestionezi-banii-metode-de-investitii/
I know I said in the article that content about investments was created, but I don’t invite you to buy it but to be careful, to inform yourself and choose what you want to do, to follow who you want by analyzing the information. I am an approved consultant on all markets: insurance, capital market, private pensions. These approvals are almost all existing in the market to be a complete consultant. There is another endorsement, an endorsement on the monetary-banking market, but at the moment I have not felt the need to take it, collaborating with professionals – consultants who are approved in this area, and my goal is not to put people in debt (this endorsement concerns bank loans that can be made both as an individual and as a legal entity).
©2025 PSIHOLOGIA BANILOR - All Rights Reserved - Powered by 
