Shabani Bizimana, 27, a Rwandan tech entrepreneur, believes in helping the youth make informed and effective decisions with all of their financial resources. Through his mobile app, FUNDLE, young people can monitor and track their expenditure and cut down costs on unnecessary things, hence getting better at managing their finances. Born and raised in Rwanda, Bizimana is passionate about entrepreneurship and psychology and holds a Bachelor’s degree from University of Rwanda’s College of Business and Economics. He was driven to create a mobile app that teaches financial literacy to young people because he faced financial management problems of his own after moving out of his parents’ house. “Ever wondered why the youth are always broke and don’t have savings even when they earn $1000/month, yet some families (dad, mom, and kids) with earnings of $700 can send their kids to school, pay rent and have savings. The issue is financial literacy, which means that the younger generation does not have the skills and knowledge to properly manage their money, which leads to overspending on things they do not need but want,” he says. Bizimana continues, “I had no idea how to manage my money properly because like many Africans we weren’t taught about money when we were growing up, and ended up wasting a lot of it on unnecessary things. I got into trouble and eventually realised that I needed to get my act together if I wanted to be financially stable.” After this realisation, Bizimana started reading and learning as much as he could about money management and personal finance. He was fortunate to join the first cohort of Jasiri Talent Investor, where he met incredible trainers and mentors who helped him in his research process and how to dig deeper into the problem. “I had this question dwelling in my mind for a couple of months, ‘why most of the youth nowadays are always broke after they get paid and don’t have any savings?’ Or how an entire family can live on $500 per month, pay rent, send kids to school and save but a single individual in their 20s who earns twice the amount is always in debt and doesn’t have any savings?” he says. Bizimana needed to understand those questions to be able to help young people, and after reading reports and doing surveys with over 200 people both in Rwanda and Kenya, he came to the conclusion that the issue was financial literacy. “I then started the mobile app FUNDLE, which will be providing lessons about financial literacy to the users,” he says. According to Bizimana, the app analyses user transactions from Mobile Money wallets and recommends ways for users to spend their money in more responsible ways, which helps the user manage their cash flow and become more financial literate. “By understanding their mobile wallet spending habit, we can use our recommendation algorithm and courses to steer them towards better financial decisions—making them “credit-worthy” for loans and mortgages,” he explains. Bizimana adds, “Knowing a group of people’s financial capabilities, FSPs (Financial Service Providers such as banks) can design products tailored to their needs.” Here are some features of the app: • Categorized Transaction History (Mobile Money) • Budget Tool (Create and monitor your budget) • Bill Reminder (Get a reminder to pay essential bills) • Financial literacy courses and useful links (Such as EJOHEZA). Bizimana’s goal is to build a generation of financially literate African youth who will be able to access formal financial services such as saving, credit, and mortgage and thus improve their lives. “Our solution empowers users to be more financially literate by keeping track of their spending, improving their saving habits by budgeting, and learning about different financial services available and how to use them,” he says. FUNDLE is available on both App Store and Play Store, designed to first helps users develop financial literacy, and then provide them with services they understand and are ready to use. To be financially literate is not about what you know or studied, it is about how you behave, so if you want to be good at your personal finance, monitor your behaviour regarding money and you can improve where you fall short, or use tools like FUNDLE to help you do so. “Managing your money is necessary for living a self-determined and secure life, whether you are planning for your retirement or saving up for a house,” Bizimana says.
