Savings and Credit Cooperatives (SACCOs) have been urged to curate products that will attract the youth for sustainable growth.
While addressing SACCO officials during the 10th Annual SACCO Leaders’ Convention in Mombasa, Safaricom Chief Business Enterprise Officer Cynthia Kropac encouraged SACCOs to digitize their platforms as a means to tap into the youth market, saying the current average SACCO member is over 40 years old and the average sacco has been in existence for at least 20 years.
“For the last four years or so, over 100 fintechs have been birthed right here in Kenya and in that short time they have amassed the same asset base as saccos and some have overtaken them, why, because Kenya is young. Kenya is full of young people, and young people are looking for solutions that meet their needs at the point and time in life where they are, and even more precisely they are on digital platforms,” said Kropac.
With 70 percent of the Kenyan people being of young people, the Safaricom Business head said Saccos will need to digitize not only how they engage the customers or getting Apps but digitizing the processes and systems they use to manage their operations.
“Very few saccos in this forum are digitized, only around five percent are fully digitized, and less than one percent can afford the co-banking platform systems that are currently available in the market,” she said.
My SACCO App by Safaricom
With the backdrop of helping saccos digitize and tap into the youth market, Safaricom launched My SACCO App, a revolutionary multi-tenant platform designed as a comprehensive solution that directly addresses the challenges faced by modern SACCOs such as efficiently managing a growing and diverse membership base.
The platform’s shared infrastructure model is expected to significantly reduce operational costs for SACCOs, with potential savings of up to 50% compared to individual implementations.
“My SACCO App is a platform that allows a Sacco to digitize. This platform creates affordability, accessibility, and an opportunity for saccos to subscribe to cloud-based solutions. That means they don’t have to invest a lot of money on big, heavy access equipment. We are giving that one-stop-shop that gives a platform that provides connectivity, cyber security that allows them to engage a market that is available for them to conquer,” said Safaricom Business Head Cynthia Kropac.