Owners of Piggy and other Nigerian mobile apps have realised that saving money could be a struggle for monthly income earners. Most times; the impulse to always spend is high especially within the first week of salary payment. By the second week, when the salary frenzy has gone down, you chastise yourself for not saving.
Then, you remember that the major difference between those who retire wealthy and those who retire poor is how well they were able to manage their finances during their earning years.
In a bid to help you better manage your money through savings and proper budgeting of all monthly expenses; we researched some of the apps that could help you do just that
PiggyVest
Piggy also known as Piggyvest is an online and mobile app saving platform that allows flexibility savings as users can choose to save daily, weekly or monthly. After downloading the app, users can save towards a specific target or choose to place a withdrawal restriction on the account.
The platform pays interest up to 10% per annum on Core Savings which could be a periodic saving,13% on SafeLock which is a Fixed Savings and 10% Savings Challenge also called the Target Savings.
For the Core Savings, interests are accrued daily on depositors balance and paid monthly available from the 1st of every month. For a SafeLock, interests are paid upfront into depositor’s Flex account which can be immediately accessed for free. While for the Savings Challenge, interests are paid daily into depositor’s Flex account which can be accessed immediately for free
All interest earned is paid into the Flex Account and account owners can withdraw from it at any time, without any charges.
Cowrywise
Other than Piggy, CowryWise is another saving and investment platform that pays higher interest rates. The good thing about this platform is that it has provision for users who just want to save without earning interests, with its halal savings option. The online savings platform pays 10-15% Interest annually and it’s paid daily to the user’s account.
The platform has various savings plans this includes Periodic Plans. With these, users can set saving plan(s) to be daily, weekly or monthly for at least 3 months. These plans can also be topped up randomly with amounts outside the automated scheduled amount.
Life Goals these plans help users meet commitments to long term financial goals. These are similar to periodic plans but they have a minimum maturity period of 1 year.
The Save As You Earn plan is for users with irregular income flow. This plan is not automated and can only be topped up manually.
Fixed Plan allows users to keep aside a lump sum of money for at least 3 months. Unlike other plans, they cannot be topped up.
Interest-free Plans are for Muslims who don’t want to earn interest on their savings. They can be set up as periodic plans, life goals, save as you earn plans or fixed plan; but they won’t attract any form of interest.
Kolo Pay
KoloPay is another mobile and web application that helps users save money little by little towards planned goals over some time. Formerly known as MyKolo, the platform is aimed at attempting to ease the stress that comes with saving as its major aim is to help people save towards planned goals. With Kolopay users have the freedom to name the goal which they are saving towards and also the period users want to save to achieve the goal.
The locked account on KoloPay guarantees a 6%pa on the saved amount. Also, the Autosave feature on the platform, users can activate a standing order on the debit card or bank account for a regularly debit of a particular amount to be saved in the KoloPay account at a frequency (Daily, Weekly or Monthly) while the SaveNow feature is for you if you want to save anytime you have.
Wema Bank’s ALAT is the first fully digital banking platform. It has the Fixed goal plans that help users save toward a target amount of money daily, weekly or monthly. Users can also choose the target amount, the target date and the date to start saving, and the app will work out how much users need to save periodically. However, they cannot withdraw from a Fixed goal until the goal is met. A Flexi goal helps to save a specific amount of money daily, weekly or monthly and can withdraw up to 50% of Flexi savings once a month.
