FINANCIAL LITERACY

SAVINGS APPS FOR MILLENNIALS

FINANCIAL literacy remains a barrier for the youth. There is no platform that offers financial insights and proactively empowers or educates millennials about personal financial issues such as credit, lending, savings and investments. As a result, millennials struggle to meet their financial goals as they are not equipped with adequate knowledge to make good financial decisions.

Akiba is working towards becoming a data-driven personalised financial marketplace that will initially offer two digital solutions. Their first solution, available for download, is a gamified savings tool (mobile app) that allows users to save towards their lifestyle goals and get rewarded for it. This is coupled with a rainy-day-fund pre-configured for users where a portion of their contributions to their active goals is passively saved to serve as a cushion for their future.

The second solution, launching soon, will be a web-based financial literacy platform that repurposes existing content created by financial service providers. For corporate clients, this will act as a financial habits research tool and for millennials, a financial education distribution platform.

The literacy platform will offer fun-financial curated content that is personalised to each user’s particular money personality, coupled with a rewards programme as part of the engagement incentive for users.

Gugu, fondly nicknamed Gugu the Shepherd, is a built-in AI-powered bot, that helps shepherd your money on the app. In addition, she will be the financial coach on the literacy platform to make sure that everything you learn is relevant. Akiba’s aim is for Gugu to own savings in South Africa for millennials, and to get South Africans familiar and confident with their personal finances. | Staff Reporter