3 Financial Literacy Mobile Apps Launched by Visa

The financial literacy industry is buzzing over the announcement by electronic payments and credit card giant Visa that it has partnered with Co-Creation Hub Nigeria to develop and launch three free mobile applications designed to encourage financial education by making learning fun and entertaining, while challenging users to advance their financial knowledge.

Visa partnered with Co-Creation Hub Nigeria given the organization’s success as a social innovation center and their joint efforts are widely anticipated to drive interest in financial education throughout Nigeria and other regions in Africa. Their efforts are targeted disproportionately to children of illiterate parents with the hope of breaking cycles of low literacy within families and communities that historically have suffered economically and educationally.

The first app, dubbed “Money Talks,” provides audio financial tutorial solutions by way of SMS, voice, web and other technologies. The app is being offered in multiple languages, including Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa and pidgin English.

Junior Achievement Nigeria also has embraced the apps, with the organization employing the “More Than Money” application, which is a game designed to strengthen students' money management skills

“Market TraderStreet Tinz” also has seen success. This app is a mobile web-based game educating children with respect to best ways in which to make smart financial decisions.

The success of these applications also is being attributed to the fact that they were locally designed and developed and, therefore, they appeal greatly to Nigerians who are attracted to the local themes, content and designs with which they are most familiar. Industry experts believe that locally developed mobile applications are the way of the future in financial education programming, which we should expect to see much more of in the months ahead.