What is the name of your organization?
myStash Technologies Limited
What is the name of your solution?
myStash
Provide a one-line summary or tagline for your solution.
myStash is a digital tool that empowers workers in Nigeria’s informal sector to build financial resilience.
In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?
Nigeria
In what country is your solution team headquartered?
Nigeria
What type of organization is your solution team?
For-profit, including B-Corp or similar models
Film your elevator pitch.
What specific problem are you solving?
The ILO estimates that over 80% of all employment in Nigeria is informal. These informal workers are not enrolled in the National Pension scheme, hence, they have no pension benefits and are unable to build financial safety nets for times of emergency and towards retirement. In addition, over 60% of these informal workers are women, many of whom are unable to access loans because they do not have collateral like land or other expensive assets.
What is your solution?
myStash is a simple and effective digital tool that enables informal economy workers in Nigeria to build financial resilience by auto-saving a percentage of whatever they earn.
They do this by creating a savings plan on the myStash app and allotting a percentage to be saved. So that anytime their client or customer pays them, that percentage is automatically removed and saved in USD. For example, an SME owner can set the myStash app to save 10% of every amount she earns, and this happens automatically in that manner. They also earn interest on their savings.
This way, they are able to build financial resilience/financial safety nets for emergencies and towards retirement. Saving in USD not only protects their purchasing power, but also instills confidence in their long-term financial planning.
Furthermore, with the myStash app their saving habit is used to credit score them, and enables them to have easier access to loan services. This is a great additional benefit given that 60% of these informal workers are women, many of whom are unable to access loans because they do not have collateral like land and other expensive assets.
Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?
Through the myStash app, workers in the informal sector/economy are able to build financial resilience by autosaving a portion of their earnings. These are workers like petty-traders, street vendors, and other self-employed individuals, or wage workers. These workers are not enrolled in the Nigerian Pension Scheme, and so they are not able to build financial resilience in the form of Pension for times of emergency or any other long-term plans.
Over 60% of these informal workers are women, many of whom are unable to access loans for their businesses because they don’t have collateral. But through myStash, they can access credit using their saving behavior as a form of credit score.
Since 2021, myStash has:
Served over 10,000 Informal workers; over 60% of whom are women.
Enabled 15% of them to access business loans, which they would otherwise not have access to.
Trained over 3000 informal economy workers on basic financial concepts like record-keeping, budgeting, and other skills tailored to their businesses, while taking into account their literacy levels, business experience, and cultural context.
