We welcome back to the market, the then first ever budgeting app in South Africa, new and improved Moneysmart.
“The previous Moneysmart was the first online budgeting platform in South Africa. Although the platform was very popular, we realised that budgeting is dead and people spend more money than they earn. We went back to the drawing board and reinvented personal financial management,” said chief operating officer (COO), Zonja Terblanche.
Founded in 2010, the Limitless Technology Group (or Limitless), the company behind Moneysmart, is ‘a financial tech company with a vision to disrupt and reinvent the traditional global financial services landscape.’
“This vision originated from the team’s ambition to open up rich financial data sources to the technology ecosystem for improved application and services development,” stated Terblanche.
What’s changed?
Unlike conventional budgeting apps, Moneysmart, is instead a spend management tool.
“Users are privy to exactly how much they can spend on a daily basis after all their planned and fixed expenses have been accounted for,” Terblanche highlighted.
There are also no budgets, transactions don’t need to be categorised and all that makes budgeting so tedious just ‘falls away.’
“We are currently in BETA and our users can expect Moneysmart to continuously improve the functionality based on their feedback,” Terblanche added.
What are the benefits?
Most people get paid before the first of every month and subsequently find themselves running out of cash before the fifteenth.
“From thereon forward they rely on mental accounting skills to count the days until their next pay cheque arrives. Moneysmart solves this problem with its single purpose feature called ‘Daily Available Cash’, which acts as the catalyst for many forthcoming features.
“Unlike most budgeting or financial management apps, it is incredibly simple and intuitive. It takes the pain out of budgeting,” suggested Terblanche.
Cost and availability
The free app is currently available on both android and web and is set to be available on IOS soon too.
“As Moneysmart is a mobile app, you can access it when and where you like, specifically in those moments when you are not sure if you can afford to spend money on something.
“You can use it on your phone or on your laptop; at home, at work or on-the-go,” explained Terblanche.