Before delving into the core of this article and answering the question Is Saving With Piggyvest Good? Let’s look at providing you with clarity on what Piggyvest is, the disadvantages as well as advantages of using a platform other than your local bank as a means of savings. When it comes to developing healthy habits, saving is one of the best options to adopt. First and foremost, let’s consider the meaning of the concept of saving.
What Is Saving
In simple or layman’s terms, saving is simply an act of securing some of your valuables such as money, assets, documents, food, and some basic life necessity against rainy days(to be used when the pressing need arrive).
In other words, saving is the portion of income not spent on current expenditure. It could also mean, the money set aside for future use and not spent immediately or the money a person has left over after they subtract out their consumer spending from their disposable income over a given time period. Savings, therefore, represents a net surplus of funds for an individual or household after all expenses and obligations have been paid.
According to Wikipedia, saving is income not spent or deferred consumption. Methods of saving include putting money aside in, for example, an investment fund or as cash. Saving also involves reducing expenditures, such as recurring costs. In terms of personal finance, saving generally specifies low-risk preservation of money, as in a deposit account, versus investment, wherein risk is a lot higher, in economics more broadly, it refers to any income not used for immediate consumption. Saving does not automatically include interest.
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What Is Piggyvest
Piggyvest is more than just a saving platform or application when one is considering the features and the benefits of the platform. Piggyvest is an online bank that helps you to save your money just like your normal commercial bank does, but with a better and innovative way that challenges you to meet up with your saving goals. Their innovative approach to savings has placed them to be unique from normal commercial banks. Their innovative approach is backed up by other benefits and features to give spice to your saving culture.
To make it top-notch and place above local banks, they added investment options to the saving option in place. This gives you a choice of investing in carefully selected and good researched investment options to invest your money into. This helps you to save and invest at the same time, which means more money and more opportunities to make your money work for you.
Piggyvest was founded by a group of creative minds by name, Odunayo Eweniyi, Somto Ifezue, and Joshua Chibueze. Although they started as Piggybank, after rebranding, it became Piggyvest. As a brand, they have experienced sustainable growth over the past few years. After almost more than six years in operation, this saving platform has successfully brought together over two million users from all over the world.
How to Get Started With Piggyvest
There are two ways to get started on the platform. The first option is to visit their website, www.piggyvest.com, and create an account. It is very easy and simple to create an account, although you have a choice to make in using their referral option to create an account which is optional.
The other way around it is to download the Piggyvest or piggybank mobile app and create an account and start saving on the go. There are no differences in both ways of getting started, is just an option, more like a two-way thing.
Reasons Why Saving With Piggyvest Is a Great Choice
Before discussing the importance of saving with the platform which is the core of this article, just like any other thing, good and bad things will be said about it. Let’s take a look at some of the defaults of the platform.
The Drawback
There are little to no defaults with the platform when compared to its advantages and what it has to offer. Also, the constraint isn’t what one should be afraid of because it’s actually in your best interest why it’s been done that way. The point is the only setback according to most reviews on Piggyvest.
- 5% FEE CHARGED: when users break their savings commitment on their account by asking for a withdrawal, a 5% fee is charged. This is done to prevent unnecessary withdrawals by the users.
Having discussed the major setback of the platform according to the review, let’s take a look at the advantages of saving with the platform and why it’s actually a good choice.
The Saving Options
In any financial organization or institution, one of its core values to its users is flexibility. Piggyvest made provision for this need so as to cater to its customers in order to save and enjoy the process. To achieve this level of flexibility, they put in place three saving methods. This method includes
- Piggy
- Safelock
- Target saving
- Flex dollar
- Flex naira
These saving options or methods have their own different features associated with them, especially when dealing with the interest rates associated with these accounts. This helps users meet up with their savings needs regardless of their budgets and goals.
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PiggyVest
This system gives the option of saving your money in the main PiggyVest account and it comes with a savings option that has a few conditions that make it preferred by some PiggyVest users.
This savings plan is quite simple. It is designed to help you save your money in the scenario where you just a place to drop your money for a period of time. On this plan, you are allowed to make a withdrawal on your savings, once in the space of every 3 months.
You can also take advantage of the autosave feature with this plan. This removes the stress of making a deposit manually at every point in time. The interest rate on this account can reach up to 8% per annum.
SafeLock
Specifically designed to help you stay disciplined until you reach your goal, you can depend on this savings option. Its fixed nature allows you to pay a specific amount upfront, just like a fixed deposit account offered by banks.
After you deposit your funds into your safe lock account, you are allowed to lock them in the account for a number of days, usually a minimum of 10 days. With this savings plan, you are eligible for around 12.5% interest per annum. With PiggyVest offering a higher savings interest than most banks, it is obviously a better choice.
Target Savings
To meet some of your goals requires a good amount of funds to be achieved. With a target savings account, the platform helps you identify these goals and save towards them. This account type allows users to keep money in their Piggyvest until an appointed time. No matter how big or small your goal is. PiggyVest can facilitate your savings. It is particularly useful when it is a long-term goal.
This account allows you to save both as a group and as an individual. Unlike the PiggyVest option, with the savings plan, you earn up to 8% per annum in interest.
Flex Dollar
Flex dollar allows you to save in dollars so you can beat currency devaluation and inflation rates. This means that you will be able to preserve the value of your savings from within the Piggyvest mobile app. With the flex dollar, you can convert your naira to dollars instantly from your flex naira wallet or bank card. All you need to do is select an amount in dollars that you will like to purchase, and then select an amount in dollars which you will like to purchase, then select a funding source and complete the transaction. The minimum for the transaction in this account is $1
Flex Naira
Flex naira is a flexible wallet that allows you to fund and withdraw for free at any time. It functions as an alternate wallet that helps you as a warehouse to safeguard your funds and save for emergencies. Piggyvest newly introduced emergency fund feature allows you to name, categorize and divide your money into manageable chunks so you know how much money you have for different responsibilities and emergencies.
13 Benefits of Saving With Piggyvest
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Higher interest rates
The first and obvious reason is that the platform offers a higher interest rate to your savings other than your local bank. Piggyvest pays you between 8%-10% for Piggyflex savings, target savings, and piggybank savings. For Safelock, it has up to a 13% interest rate. These percentages are hard to come by when saving in your local bank account. For this reason, getting higher interest rates on your capital makes the platform a great choice as your money grows faster when compared to the interest rate getting from your local banks.
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Transparency
At the end of every month, you get a breakdown of how your interest was accrued on your savings. The interest is calculated on a daily basis, you will be informed on how much was paid daily as an interest to you on any amount of money saved. They also provide a record of all your transactions.
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Gain points on saving
This platform has made to be an exciting saving journey for it users. You earn points for saving. Every point earned can be converted to cash which is kept in your flex Naira account and it will be withdrawn at any time. A point is equivalent to 10 Naira. Accumulated bonus points can be converted to cash that you can use to buy airtime or data. Your Flex Naira account is also where the monthly interest on your saving is paid (the aim of the flex naira account is for you to put aside money for any time use).
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Lock your funds
Just like a fixed deposit account where you can lock up some certain amount to generate interest for a particular period of time, which can be done also on the platform through Safe lock. The exciting thing about this feature is that you are been paid upfront. The interest is automatically paid to your flex naira account when you safe lock any amount but your initial capital can be withdrawn after you set a time frame and the time frame elapses. You can safe-lock your funds for more or less than 3 months. This is absolutely your decision to make.
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Being penalized for not meeting your goal
This point which happens to be the only major setback according to the review, it’s actually put in place to help users to meet up with their saving goals. If you decide to withdraw before the date that you have set, the platform will charge you 2.5% of any amount you wish to withdraw at that given point in time. This is put in place to help you avoid spending unnecessary or better put, avoid buying this on impulse and to help you meet up with the goal you set for yourself. It is geared toward building a kind of discipline in you to help achieve your goal.
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Set withdrawal dates
You can set the time to withdraw funds but if not set, you will have to follow the stipulated date set by Piggyvest for withdrawals. It’s normally four times a year and it is done quarterly. An attempt to withdraw before the stipulated schedule date leads to a penalty as explained in the previous point.
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Referral bonus
Another exciting part of your saving journey with the platform. You can recommend the app to your friends and family through your tracking link or phone number and get rewards for doing so. For each referral, you get a thousand naira. This is found in their referral program. This gives you the leverage to make more money with the platform.
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Automatic savings
This is also known as autosave. This is when the platform saves on your behalf based on the time and amount you have set. This could be daily, weekly, or monthly. You can deactivate the autosave mode at any point in time. There is also a quick save. The quicksave allows you to save on your own and at any point, you decide to.
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Savings challenge
This is more like a level-up challenge to help you meet your saving needs. You can decide to start a challenge with friends where you all decide to save a certain amount consistently for a particular period. This can also be a form of target savings if you all are targeting the same goals. This is more like a collective saving and it can be used by a group of people having a target towards an investment opportunity. They can come together and save towards an investment goal.
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Investment options
The platform has proven to be more than just a saving platform. It provides it users with different investment opportunities from different trusted sources that you can explore from to grow their money. You can invest in agriculture, transportation, and other investment opportunities listed on the platform. This feature places Piggyvest higher above other local banks which helps you to grow your wealth and at the same time lets your money work for you.
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Save in dollars
You can transfer money directly from your Piggyvest account and save in a dollar account. Just like you can make a transfer or anyone can transfer money to your local bank as well as with the Piggyvest account. When the money arrives in your flex account, you can move the money to save in the flex dollars account. You can as well hedge funds against inflation by keeping it in dollars.
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Tested and Trusted
The platform is trusted and is being used by millions of users and they are recognized. It is a fun fact to know that, Nigerians save over a billion naira on the platform on a monthly basis.
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Customer Support
Excellent customer support and are proactive in dealing with customer complaints. Dealing with people or customers has never been an easy task for any organization. Despite this fact, Piggyvest has proven to be a customer-friendly platform, and their customer is their priority.
Summary
From the features of the platform, it’s no doubt that Piggyvest is a very good platform for saving. This is an awesome improvement from saving that one can literally consider letting go of local banks for Piggyvest because of its flexibility, transparency, and as well as the interest you accrued on your saving capital. The provision of carefully researched investment options if you are considering making your money work for you on the platform is what gives it an edge over other local banks. You can choose from the various saving options to meet your needs as well as your saving goals.
