A new personal finance startup, Bsavi, founded by a group of South Africans has finally launched at Web Summit. While it’s currently open as an invite-only service, people interested in testing out the budget app can start queuing and sign-up on its website.
No ad to show here.
South Africa’s home to many financial tech startups, each with its own kicks and quirks. In January this year, Old Mutual bank’s popular money management platform 22seven became free to use for all its users.
Bsavi, however, notes that it’s not like your run-of-the-mill budgeting app. The service is described as a spend management tool which shows users exactly how much they can spend on a daily basis after all their planned and fixed expenses have been accounted for.
Bsavi tries to solve the notorious problem of mid-to-end-of-the month brokage, with its single purpose feature called “Daily Available Cash”, which acts as the catalyst for many forthcoming features such as credit monitoring, mobile payments, crowd savings and more.
“We live in the age of social networks, Google Now, and Artificial Intelligence, all of which have already started to shift the paradigm in how we connect, communicate and transact in the information age. Banking tomorrow won’t be a place you go to but something that you do. We aim to integrate into the way everyday people live, work and play with their money, essentially becoming the Google Now of personal finance,” says Tobie van Zyl, CEO and founder of Bsavi.
By utilising the power of the company’s Shift_Ctrl Engine API, Bsavi acts as an origination service for third-party companies like banks and credit providers as well as offering a platform for third-party companies to develop apps for their user base.
By using valuable user data and insights — Bsavi’s holding company, Limitless Technology Group — has begun piloting Shift_Ctrl Engine with a few leading financial services providers in South Africa, originating credit applications for people with little or no credit scores. Meaning that previously declined consumers can now pass more holistic data to financial services providers to have them improve the process by which they vet and pre-qualify new credit customers.
The Cape Town-based startup set out to disrupt and reinvent the global financial ecosystem with its world-first social, financial data transaction exchange for banks, credit providers and retail and commerce companies to securely connect to users’ financial graphs on their own terms.
The aim of Bsavi’s Shift_Ctrl Engine is to allow the online world to organise itself better around consumers financial demographics and preferences, delivering valuable and relevant on-demand services.
“With the world becoming more open and connected, we’re leveraging the power of Artificial and Proprietary Financial Algorithmic Intelligence to make this possible,” says Van Zyl. “Imagine waking up knowing exactly what method of transport you can use, where to buy your groceries and automatically have your weekend planned from a daily affordability perspective.”
Limitless Technology Group has over 70 000 customers across all its products, such as Money Smart and Credit Crunch.
