Commercial banks are the go-to places for saving aside contribution and thrift schemes. Sadly, one of the major challenges most Nigerian savers have is that these banks offer relatively lower interest rates compared to when they give loans. Although some banks offer products with higher interest rates than savings deposit accounts, one of which is a fixed-deposit account.
Interestingly, in recent times there has been a surge in the number of Fintech startups competing for a slice of commercial bank’s slice of the pie by offering online savings at a higher interest rate.
For income earners looking for a high-interest saving that is better than what commercial banks offer, here are some of the online savings platforms that are currently encouraging the saving culture in Nigeria
PiggyBank
This is an online and mobile app savings 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. There’s is a limit to the amount that can be saved on one’s account at a time.
The platform pays interest up to 10% per annum on Core Savings which could be a periodic saving,12.4% 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
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 on a daily basis 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.
KoloPay
KoloPay is another mobile and web application that helps users save money little by little towards planned goals over a period of 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 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.
