The Rise of Saving platforms in Nigeria
All over the world, saving part of your income can be very hard and often times we spend all our income on things that we don’t need or those days that things just come up and we don’t have a choice than to spend. Some people have made use of different calculators and other means to monitor their expenses and savings but the fact still remains that we still don’t save wisely. Savings simply means you are saving more than what is coming in.
Majority of us simply believe that savings means putting your money in the bank without spending it. Banks will not just keep your money inside a safe box but they will invest it and make profit from your savings. It’s very bad to have savings that doesn’t yield interest which is one of the reasons why i write this article. We have different options for making more profits from your savings which i will share in future posts but we will be looking at the rise of savings management and automation platform in Nigeria.
Recently, different startups have built platforms that will encourage Nigerians to save more from their income and also earn profit of up to 15% of initial savings over a period of time. Such platforms will also ensure discipline in terms of penalty charges on withdrawal from your savings. I have used different platforms to save but i will like to focus on piggybank.ng and cowrywise.com. They are both great savings platform but i will share some of their features below.
Piggybank.ng
Piggybank.ng is an online savings platform in partnership with United Bank for Africa (UBA) that enables individuals to grow their savings and also enforce discipline on their savings which eliminates the temptation of withdrawing from their savings.
Features:
You can select your savings plan (Quick Safe, SafeLock Savings and Auto Save) by selecting the amount you want to save per day or month or year. You can also set withdrawal dates different from the default dates.
It uses your saved cards or you enter a new card details, USSD or bank account for savings.
You can also set a custom day that the amount should be debited using your existing card.
It supports GTB *737* which means you can save using USSD deposit.
Piggybank has a safe lock feature which gives you between 0.25% to 25% Interest upfront on your savings depending on your savings. You can SafeLock all or parts of your Piggybank.ng savings and get it back at a convenient time you set. According to piggybank, the minimum amount you can SafeLock is N1000 for ten days and that attracts an interest of 0.25% and the maximum you can SafeLock is N3 Million for 1000 days which attracts a 25% interest.
They also have a referral plan that allows you to earn N50 anytime someone creates an account with your link then you will earn N100 when they save their first N100 and earn N350 whenever they use the quick save option of N2,000 and above the first time.
Cowrywise.com is another great platform for automated savings that. It’s saving option and interest is different from other savings platforms.
Features:
it enables you to save using the periodic savings plan which enables you to save daily, monthly with 10% interest per annum.
They have fixed savings plan for fixed deposit for savings for 3 months and above and earn interest up to 15% per annum on your savings, you will be able to set the withdraw date and the interest you earn at withdrawal.
Then we have interest free savings for individuals who doesn’t support interest on savings due to either religion or personal reasons.
It uses your saved cards or you enter a new card details and bank account for savings.
I recommend both platforms for your long term savings. If you don’t want much return on your investment and wouldn’t mind penalty on withdrawal, piggybank is for you. However, if your goal is to make high return on your investmen/savings, then you should consider cowrywise and moreover they don’t charge penalty on withdrawals.
Wishing the two platform the best and look forward to see new features that will be implemented in this project.
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