Is Piggyvest a scam or legit?

Without mincing a word, Piggyvest is the most popular savings app in Nigeria at the time of writing this, I believe you have come across it in one way or another. Personally,  I’ve been using the platform for more than 5 years and the question is still there.

Is it the best savings app for you?

Let’s talk about 5 factors you might need to re/consider before starting your savings journey with Piggyvest.

Before we delve into these factors,  chances are that you’re hearing about Piggyvest for the first time, so let me reintroduce it to you.

About Piggyvest

Just like the traditional piggy banks, Piggyvest is a platform that lets you save your money for a period of time and earn interest on it. 

You can also put the money into some investments to earn high interest right on the app instead of locking it in a safe.

Although the biggest platform in Nigeria in the personal finance niche, here are 5 things you should consider before signing up with Piggyvest.

Factors to Consider Before Joining Piggyvest as a User.

• Buggy App

Before, Piggyvest used to be very fast and seamless. But now, it is very slow and even hangs most of the time.

If you check the Play Store reviews by users most people are complaining about the same thing, bugs.

I was very excited to see the fine design when I updated the app on my phone, little did I know that being beautiful comes with a price. My phone keeps warning me about the app whenever I open it for just a few minutes.

As a software developer myself, I know there can’t be perfect software without bugs but it becomes a problem when the bugs aren’t fixed as soon as possible, especially if it involves financial transactions.

If you don’t care about slow or hanging mobile apps, then Piggyvest may be for you. 

• Withdrawal and Breaking Penalty

Believe me, this would have been the best reason why Piggyvest is the ideal savings app for you. But there’s a problem.

Piggyvest lets you withdraw your money without any penalty once after every 3 months. If you missed withdrawing your money on the “free withdrawal day“, you have to wait until after 3 months, which to me is not that okay. At least Piggyvest gives a 3-day grace for free withdrawal.

That doesn’t mean you can’t withdraw your money anytime, you can and it’s a great opportunity for Piggyvest to make money if you choose to withdraw when it’s not your free withdrawal day.

Let’s say you need the money urgently because unforeseen circumstances happen at a time, Piggyvest can release the money for you but you’ll be charged 2.5% of the money as a breaking fee.

I am not saying there shouldn’t be a penalty for breaking your savings when it’s not the withdrawal day, but common, 2.5% is too much just to “promote savings culture” according to Piggyvest. 

If you don’t know how high 2.5 percent is, here is an example. 

Let’s say you have saved about N5m and you suddenly need the money to sort out some bills, Piggyvest will remove N125,000 and give you N4,875,000.

If you do your calculation at the end of the day, you might realize that the breaking fee is higher than all the interest you’ve earned on the platform.

For instance, I earned about N1,800 on my N200k savings for 2 months, that’s N3,600+. But the breaking fee is N5,000

This same mathematics works for N1m, N20m, or higher.

If you think the one-day per every 3 months and 2.5% breaking fee is not an issue, Piggyvest is okay for you.

• Customer Support

Before patronizing any institution, first of all, check the efforts put into its customer care and support because if the institution doesn’t care about you as a customer, then you will have an extremely bad experience using its product or service.

Let’s give it up for Piggyvest, the company has exceptional customer support put into place. The customer support reps are always available to help. I messaged them in the night around 8 pm and I got responses from them, even on non-working days. 

This for me, is a green flag and I hope it continues that way.

That being said, the best way to contact Piggyvest is through their verified Twitter/X handle. Email can be slow especially if your matter is urgent. They have a phone number you can call too.

If good customer support is what you are looking for before picking a savings app, Piggyvest is very good there.

• Flexible Account Management 

Every app that I have been using, gives you control over your account whilst ensuring the account is safe.

For example, I can log in to my GT bank online and change my email, phone number, etc., and verify with a hardware token that I’m the one making those changes.

For some fintech apps, you can do some bare minimum things like that but Piggyvest says no.

If you want to do anything like changing phone numbers or withdrawing bank details, you have to contact Piggyvest. 

I mean, that’s to foster security right? But it’s very unnecessary. They can request OTP, email approval, ID verification, or any other automated means to ensure you do what you want to as soon as possible.

I also realized you cannot deactivate or close your account too, unless you contact them. These are very basic features on some fintech apps.

These screenshots are from my Kuda account.

But this shouldn’t be a problem since Piggyvest has a very fast response rate. The next problem you will be facing is trying to verify that the account belongs to you

But what if it’s in case of an emergency? You have to wait until they reply to you.

And be ready to go an extra length to prove it’s your account. Your BVN or ID verification won’t be enough, if you have deposited from any bank account that’s not registered in your Piggyvest account, be ready to provide the bank statement of that deposit otherwise, they won’t rectify anything for you.

To me, it’s no longer a security measure but a hindrance. Even after verifying my details, they still asked me to send them the bank statement of the deposit I made via POS. To date, they haven’t rectified it.

You may need to thoroughly consider this before opting for Piggyvest as your savings platform. 

• Security: Is Piggyvest a scam or legit?

In short, Piggyvest is legit.

Piggyvest has been in business actively since 2019 although they started Piggybank.ng in 2016 as a save-only platform. That’s a combined 7 Years and the company is still operational to date.

They have secured all forms of security certification as a Fund manager in Nigeria.

While doing my research about scam scandals on Piggyvest, I saw 2 reports.

This report by RipplesNigeria says hackers stole over N2.3m from Piggyvest but there’s no further report if this has been fixed or not.

But what I know is that the security is now tighter and that it becomes annoying to me… every second,  you have to use the entire pin to verify you’re the one using the app.

There is another rumor that a fake money lender company, Bamise ImagineLenders scammed Piggyvest N2billion but according to Nairametrics, Piggyvest debunked the rumor and assured the public that their funds are safe.

Aside from these two, there’s no scam or fraud report on Piggyvest. In 7 years of doing business, this is a great achievement.

If security is your concern, you have no worries with Piggyvest. 

Your decision: Is Piggyvest the right savings app for you?

Although Piggyvest might have some disadvantages such as the withdrawal policy, breaking penalties, and bugs in the apps, the overall experience is good.

Human beings grow, and so do the way we approach problems. I hope Piggyvest will work on these few issues soon so that they can have the throne for a very long time.

Chipper Cash vs PayDay – Who do you think will win?

I know that you have heard about these two platforms before now and might have used one or two of them. In this head-to-head review, we will compare the two famous dollar and virtual card providers, Chipper Cash and PayDay, to help you determine which one is better suited for your needs. 

We will examine various aspects such as usability, fees, features, and customer support to provide you with a comprehensive analysis.

Kindly note that this is just a blog post from my personal experience and what I see on social media, not sponsored content by any of the companies I’m reviewing here.

If we’re clear on that, let’s start.

#1. Usability

Of all features that make an app stand out, Usability is very important and this means how easy it is for users to navigate the app.

Chipper Cash has a very basic design and experience, while PayDay has the nicest design and it’s very easy to navigate.

A use case for why this is important:

Chipper Cash would never show you the exchange rate unless you want to “Send” or “Request” funds, which you’re not likely to see. But on PayDay, you know how much a dollar costs before a purchase.

And another use case on this usability part is the overview screen which is (normally) meant to show your recent activities or overview of what you can do. 

Winner: PayDay.

#2. Fees

Every human is a business person by nature, so in most cases, we tend to look for the cheapest option and such happens when it comes to choosing a Dollar or virtual card provider.

A lot of people complain that Chippers Cash has the most expensive exchange rate and this seems to be true.

For instance, as of yesterday, I bought a dollar on PayDay at ₦742 while it cost ₦781.

But before we agree that Chipper Cash is not the “cheaper”, let’s break down the rates.

To create a VISA or Mastercard virtual card on PayDay, you’ll pay $5 as a creation fee while you’ll pay ₦2,000 on Chipper Cash.

And before you can buy anything with dollars on PayDay, you have to swap the naira in your wallet for a dollar, then top up your card… They charge 0.5% of how much you’re swapping (maximum of $5).

While you don’t pay any swapping fee on Chipper Cash.

Let’s assume I need a virtual card of $10, here is the breakdown:

For PayDay:

• Creation fee – $5
• Top up – $10
• Swapping fee – $0.075 (0.5% of $15)
• Total ⇒ $15.075

This converted to Naira in PayDay’s rate would be: ₦742 x 15.075 => ₦11,185.65

For Chipper Cash:

• Creation fee: ₦2,000
• Top up: $10
• Total: $10 + ₦2k

Let’s convert this to Naira in Chipper Cash’s rate: (₦781 x 10) + ₦2,000 ⇒ ₦9,810

It’s clear that Chippers Cash is “cheaper” but for the first time, you are creating the card.

If you already have a card but want to top up, PayDay is cheaper but the difference is not up to ₦40 (781 – 742).

In this case, there’s no winner.

Winner: Draw

#3. Customer support

Because we are human and we are not perfect, what we manufacture, create, or produce as well will not be perfect. 

That’s why there is customer support for businesses in case things go south and this is very important if you’re thinking of choosing a Dollar or virtual card provider.

PayDay has the worst customer service, although they’re active on Twitter busy creating awareness for the product, but put zero to meager effort into their customer support service.

I once had an issue on February 16, I sent them a message but they replied on March 2nd… that’s 2 weeks!

The recent issue I have with them which I’ll explain later took them 18 hours to send an “automated” response and since then, I’ve not heard anything from them and the issue hasn’t been solved. They immediately close the conversation without resolving it.

The evidence of their poor service is on Twitter, just visit their page to enjoy the comments.

Chipper Cash, they have a faster response rate when it comes to Customer service… I had an issue creating a dollar card and I reached out on Twitter, immediately I received a response and the issue was solved before I see the response.

And I’ve not yet seen any trend where people complain about Chipper Cash’s support.

Winner: Chipper Cash.

#4. Success Rate

Still, on the imperfection, anything can happen at any time but you definitely don’t want to put your money on a platform that’s more likely to fail.

To be frank, Chipper Cash has the highest success rate while you may need to go to the nearby mountain to pray and fast before using PayDay.

This is the top reason why a lot of people are trying to contact PayDay’s support and I think the messages are too much for their support to handle.

I personally have an ongoing issue with them. I want to renew my domain names and I decided to use PayDay, I deposited some Naira, swapped to USD, and decided to get a virtual Dollar card with $34.74.

I expect PayDay to deduct the Money, give me a dollar card with $29.74 as a balance, and remember their $5 card fee.

I tried to buy the card, no response if it failed or it’s successful, I guess it’s a service… I keep on trying until I’m tired.

So I checked my balance $15 has been deducted ($5 in 3 times).

I had no idea why because up till now, no card has been issued to me… I had $19.74 left which I quickly sent to my Chipper Cash before PayDay got angrier.

I top up my Chipper cash with some Naira, purchase my dollar card and I got it immediately

Up till now, PayDay hasn’t issued the card to me or refunded me. People are complaining a lot about this same issue.

The only (trending) complaint about Chipper Cash is the fee which I’ve explained already.

Update on 16th of May, 2023

The founder of PayDay tweeted to celebrate their milestone of having over 600k customers and I replied with my complain.

As seen in the screenshot above, he asked for my PayDay tag and immediately, the magic happened. I got my $15 refunded!

I hope they PayDay improves on their infrastructure instead of having multiple card creation failure and refund.

But for now, Chipper Cash wins here.

Winner: Chipper Cash

#5. Downloads & Reviews

So far, I’ve been referencing my experience with both platforms and it’s high time we see how people are reacting to both apps.

I’ve mentioned that PayDay doesn’t have good reviews on Twitter compared to Chipper Cash but let’s check the Play Store to see what the users are saying with figures.

PayDay has:

• 100k+ Downloads
• 3k+ reviews
• 2.1 out of 5 average ratings.
• Most rated 1 stars 

Chipper Cash has:

• 5M+ Downloads
• 109k reviews
• 4.1 out of 5 average ratings
• Most rated 5 stars.

This is evident that average people would prefer to use Chipper Cash instead of PayDay.

Now, I’m not talking about the number of downloads or reviews, but the average ratings… That shows how satisfied customers are.

Winner: Chipper Cash

#6. Downtime

Most of the time, we want to get something done as quickly as now. This is why I include this point to let you know how far.

Currently, Chipper Cash is down and I’ve updated the app maybe it’ll be resolved but still down… imagine if I need to pay for something now and Chipper Cash is my only option, my faith on candle sticks.

People complain about this, but to be honest it’s not like that every day as it’s mostly working… I would say the uptime is around 95%.

I have never seen a PayDay app crash or have downtime and people don’t complain about that as well. 

Winner: PayDay

Conclusion: Chipper Cash vs PayDay –Which one is the best?

In the battle between Chipper Cash and PayDay, both platforms offer impressive features and services. PayDay stands out for its user-friendly interface, app’s uptime, and lower exchange rate, while Chipper Cash excels in Customer support, success rate, and user feedback. 

Ultimately, the choice between the two dollars or virtual card providers depends on your specific needs and preferences. 

I recommend you assess the fee structures, available features, and usability of both platforms to make an informed decision that aligns with what you need the platform for.

As mentioned earlier, this is not a sponsored post but an honest review from my personal experience and the trend on social media platforms.

If you think something is missing or would like to drop any feedback regarding your experience on any of these apps, kindly use the comment box as it’ll be helpful to everyone reading this blog post.

Don’t forget to share if you think this review is good enough, for people to be informed.

Are you a Nigerian but it’s quite difficult to make international payments online? What you need is one of these dollar or virtual card providers!

As the world is becoming a global village, the way we make payments is also changing, and thanks to Technology for that. We have the likes of PayPal, Square, Venmo, and gift cards that make payment so fast and easy for people in developed countries like the United States.

But in some African countries like Nigeria, it’s a very different story as nothing seems to be working for us when it comes to making borderless payments.

A few months ago, we received announcements from the banks that our Mastercard and VISA would be unable to pay for international transactions.

So, does that mean we should stop shopping on Amazon, eBay, or on any international sites?

In Nigeria, many people are turning to the dollar and virtual card providers to meet their international payment needs.

Here are the top 5 dollar and virtual card providers in Nigeria

#1. Chipper Cash

Chipper Cash is a mobile payment platform that allows users to send and receive money across Africa. The platform also offers dollar and virtual card services to its users. With Chipper Cash, users can easily create and link a virtual card to their account. 

In addition to its dollar and virtual card services, Chipper Cash also offers a range of other features, including the ability to buy airtime, pay bills, and save money. The platform is available for both Android and iOS devices, making it accessible to a wide range of users.

Many users complain that the Chipper Cash exchange rate is higher than other card providers, but they all agree that the card works anytime and any day, which is still good, I mean, we don’t have a choice for now.

To get started with Chipper Cash, visit their website at https://chipper.cash/

#2. PayDay

PayDay is another popular dollar and virtual card provider in Nigeria. The platform offers a range of payment solutions, including virtual cards, and foreign accounts. With PayDay, users can easily create virtual cards and use them to make online purchases.

In addition to its dollar and virtual card services, PayDay offers a range of other features, including the ability to send money and receive payments. The platform is available for both Android and iOS devices, making it accessible to a wide range of users.

Elon Musk’s company, Starlink recently choose PayDay as one of their payment processors in Nigeria which is a huge partnership proving that PayDay gat some levels too.

Oh, of all the platforms listed here, PayDay has the best User Interface, well maybe this is not valid but I love the design personally.

To get started with PayDay, visit their website at https://www.usepayday.com/

#3. Cardtonic

Cardtonic is a platform that allows users to buy, sell, and exchange gift cards, as well as provide dollar and virtual card services. The platform offers competitive rates for its services, making it a popular choice for those who need to make international transactions.

Cardtonic also offers a range of other features, including the ability to buy and sell Bitcoin, pay bills, and transfer funds.

How does it work?

Let’s say you want to buy an item that costs $200 on Amazon, You can head over to Cardtonic to buy an Amazon gift card of that amount, and you’re good to go.

The platform is available for both Android and iOS devices, making it accessible to a wide range of users.

To get started with Cardtonic, visit their website at https://cardtonic.com/

#4. Barter by Flutterwave

Barter is a virtual card service provided by Flutterwave, one of the leading payment platforms in Africa. The platform offers a range of payment solutions, including virtual cards, physical cards, and dollar accounts. With Barter, users can easily create virtual cards and use them to make online purchases.

In addition to its dollar and virtual card services, Barter offers a range of other features, including the ability to pay bills, send money, and receive payments. The platform is available for both Android and iOS devices, making it accessible to a wide range of users.

To get started with Barter by Flutterwave, visit their website at https://barter.flutterwave.com/

#5. Flip by Fluidcoin

Flip is a virtual card service provided by Fluidcoin, a cryptocurrency exchange platform. The platform offers a range of payment solutions, including virtual cards and dollar accounts. With Flip, users can easily create virtual cards and use them to make online purchases.

In addition to its dollar and virtual card services, Flip offers a range of other features, including the ability to buy and sell Bitcoin, pay bills, and transfer funds. The platform is available for both Android and iOS devices, making it accessible to a wide range of users.

To get started with Flip by Fluidcoin, visit their website at https://useflip.app

Enjoy Cross-border with Virtual card providers in Nigeria

The rise of digital payment platforms has made it easier for people to transact across borders. The dollar and virtual card providers listed above offer a range of payment solutions that make it easy for Nigerians to make international transactions. 

These providers offer competitive rates and a range of features that make them a popular choice for those who need to send and receive money across borders.

I will advise you to get 2-3 of these card providers in case one fvck up. I have  5.

Which of these providers have you used before? Mind sharing your opinion? Okay, you have the floor in the comment section.