App Of The Week: REACH | The Fintech App That Promotes A Savings Culture In Nigerians

The present economy state of Nigeria calls for citizens to be financially savvy. It was for this purpose that JR Kanu, a former MBA grad from Stanford University, set up REACH to promote a savings culture among Nigerians and to help them “save for rainy days”. JR first saw the reason for an app that would help people reach their financial goals when he witnessed first-hand a group of Nigerians who got into Oxford but couldn’t raise their tuition fees in good time. This led to the deferring of their admission by a year to mitigate their financial burdens. He had also experienced a similar situation earlier when he had gone to Stanford for his MBA and faced financial difficulties due to an unsecured loan. From these instances, he saw the necessity for a service which will enable people  reserve insignificant amounts of money that would eventually add up to larger funds.

 Plan More, Worry Less

“Plan more worry less; set a financial goal and we will help you quietly save small amounts until you reach your goals.” — The Reach App

The app doesn’t just let you save money but it also lets you do it with a community of people with the same goal in mind. In this way, these people are able to monitor your progress and you theirs. The main page of the app is divided into two sections: Savings and MY Community.  The Saving page carries a list of all the goals you have added as well as a progress indicator on the right side. The My Community page, on the other hand, allows you to add only a maximum of 12 people to the community. How feasible would this be if someone has more people than the stipulated number of 12 people to add the community? This is hardly a hassle because each of the 12 people can also invite their 12 friends to save towards a shared goal and those 12 can also invite each of their friends to join the community and the process can go on and on until all these people become a network of communities. In the top right corner of the app, lays a fascinating chatbot called Kudi. She’s built by the Reach team to receive data and provide information to Reach users. Kudi also serves as a progress tracker.

Getting The App

If you’re interested in saving for life’s biggest moment with a community with a shared goal, Reach app is for you. It is available on Google Play Store at a size of 15 Megabytes. It is compatible with android versions from 4.1 and above.