Sleek and Efficient; Cowrywise App Makes Automated Saving Easy

Cowrywise is one of the most talked about fintech startups in town. The company is a personal finance platform that helps users save their money by investing in high-yield government bonds. Interestingly, the fintech uses automation to make these investments on behalf of users.

Since its launch in 2016, the startup has garnered quite a reputation. Over 53,000 users have registered on its platform and have collectively saved around $5 million. In July 2018, Cowrywise joined the prestigious YCombinator Accelrator programme.

Recently, the company released its first iOS app so we decided to check out its Android app to see how the platform works.

Exploring the Cowrywise App

First things first, at just 12MB, the app has a very small download size. 12MB is not a lot when you consider that many other apps performing the same function have download sizes of over 20MB. So the Cowrywise team did a great job keeping the file size minimal.

But after installation, the app size balloons to 24MB. This may be due to decompression of the app or downloading of extra files by the app after installation.

Opening the app, I really enjoyed how fluid the interface and work flow was. The onboarding screen did a fine job explaining how the app works in a truly minimalist fashion.

So I proceeded to the signup screen and did the needful. It was still pretty fluid. Registration, verification code, the whole process was a cake work. Oh! I also got a nice letter from the CEO informing me about company and whatnot. Really cool.

It prompted me to create a periodic savings plan and asked how frequently I would like to make deposits. This part is actually for the automated savings workflow.

I added all the required details and then I discovered something strange. On the Cowrywise website, it promises interests up to 15% per annum. But on the app, interests varied between 10%-12% based on the metrics applied.

Of course we all know that investments are tricky, but Cowrywise should have added a disclaimer somewhere to tell users that yields vary.

Beyond that, the app experience is quite fluid.

But of course the experience might not be the same for everybody though and quite a few users have had some complaints about the platform.