New app helps households spend money on their children – Gadget

A new South African app referred to as Squirrel Away permits digital money items to be despatched immediately into kids’s financial savings accounts. It presents an various to once-off presents like toys or vouchers.

The platform helps each single and repeated contributions into ETFs and cash market unit trusts. Features embrace personalised messages and the potential to pool items from a number of contacts. The app is positioned as a low-barrier entry level to long-term monetary gifting.

Squirrel Away was launched by SA tech founder Sibongile Maputla in response to questioning the long-term worth of standard items after changing into a mom. Maputla had noticed how households, notably Black households, remained excluded from monetary programs that promised development however introduced boundaries.

“We’re not here to replace formal financial institutions; we want to make long-term investing feel as normal as buying a toy,” says Maputla. “We’re here to make it familiar.”

Entry prices, complexity and a lack of cultural relevance prevented many from accessing long-term funding instruments. Maputla says the platform’s broader worth lies in the conversations it prompts, notably round monetary literacy and long-term planning.

“I need kids in South Africa to develop up realizing they’ve a stake in the future. That wealth is for everyone, and that compound curiosity will not be an summary or advanced idea, however one thing that belongs to them.

“We don’t need billion-rand exits to feel like we’ve succeeded. If one child opens an investment statement at 18 and sees that their village believed in them, that’s the legacy.”

The use of direct fund transfers to help long-term financial savings for kids is changing into extra frequent in South Africa’s fintech sector. Squirrel Away facilitates this pattern by providing a structured platform for household and associates to contribute to a youngster’s monetary basis.

By embedding funding into routine celebrations equivalent to birthdays or faculty milestones, the app goals to take away the psychological barrier that usually surrounds monetary planning. Squirrel Away says the app suits into rituals which are already culturally acquainted.

The design encourages group participation. Families can contribute collectively, and some customers have begun co-ordinating child bathe items as collective investments. Conversations between family now prolong to how one can construction a youngster’s portfolio.

The firm is fielding consumer questions that sign deeper engagement, equivalent to: “How do I explain ETFs to my child?”, “Can I add this to my monthly debit orders?”, and “Can we set this up as a school-leaver gift?”