Samuel Njuguna’s fintech startup helps users save smarter with psychology, culture, and community.
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Show Notes:
In this Mission Matters episode, Adam Torres interviews Samuel Njuguna, CEO & Founder of Chumz App, about how his savings and investment platform uses gamification and behavioral psychology to promote financial inclusion across Sub-Saharan Africa. With over $50 million saved toward 1 million+ goals, Sam shares his mission to make saving seamless, social, and culturally relevant—starting with Kenya and expanding across the continent.
About Chumz App
Chumz.io is a savings platform that is revolutionising the savings culture in Africa.
Through behavioural psychology techniques, the Chumz App can ease saving and investment experiences for its users.
Goal-based investing, social nudges and default bias are some ways users can kick start and nurture their savings habits.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to mission matters.com and click on Be Our Guest to Apply. All right, so today I have Samuel Una on the line, and he is CEO and Founder over at Chums App.
Sam, welcome to the show. Thank you, Adam. Thank you for having me. Thanks. All right, so for everybody listening, this is part of our Milken Global Conference series where we highlight and feature some of the attendees that went to the conference. Speakers, panelists, and just people that are involved with the Milken Institute in general.
So Sam, correct me if I’m off on this, you went to the Milken Global Conference this year? Yes. Yes, correct. Yeah. now, have you been before? Is this your first time, like, talk to us about your experience. It was my first time. I think all, I can say it was a lot. I mean, I met so many interesting people, a lot of conversations and very short breaks and you are back to conversations.
So it was overwhelming in a good. Yeah. That’s amazing. Yeah. So what, was one of your favorite parts of the conference? I know it can be overwhelming, especially your first time, but what, what was one of your favorite parts? Was the, panels, the content, the networking. I don’t know. What was your favorite?
I think the networking, the networking was pretty interesting for me because I got to meet people that ordinarily wouldn’t mm-hmm. Margin to meet and we have a casual conversation or just a conversation about what you’re building, hearing the experiences. That, that was very key for me. I think the other one was also learning from people from different parts of the world doing something that is similar.
Interesting enough. Also what we are doing, they reached out on the, networking platform under Milliken. And from that they would share the experiences, how they have done the same approach in a different way, and see synergies around you know, what else we together. Totally agree with you there.
let’s switch it up a bit here. I want to get into what you’re doing over at Chums app. So maybe first thing, first, tell us about your company. Yeah. So, yeah, so my company, we define it as a goal-based savings and investment app that uses behavioral psychology and gamification. Guide people on how and when to save.
In a nutshell, what we mean by that is uh, creating a more interesting, fun, gamified way of achieving your financial goals. Hmm. How’d you come up with this idea? I think it stems from a personal problem that I had whereby I would have my banking app, I would see all these other banking avenues. But then again, the motivation for me to move my money from my pocket into the savings channel was a bit taxing.
So the question was, is there a way I can make this interesting? How can I make saving more seamless in a way that I would save you know, tying it to things that I like for example. Is it possible I tire, I, get a savings prompt based on how my football team is performing. Mm-hmm. And out of that I saw it as a way of achieving my own scratching, my, own niche.
And from the research I did, I also found it was also a common problem with people who are also banked, but also people who were unbanked. But then they had the gap between intention of saving and actually saving, which is a habit gap. Mm. So with the behavioral aspects and gamification. It was my way of driving myself to save, and ultimately in a broader con context of so other people to save and invest.
Hmm. Now you mentioned bankable and unbankable. Can you define that a little bit? I don’t wanna assume that everybody listening kind of understands the overall banking landscape and what that means. Yeah, correct. So, in the context of sub Sub-Saharan Africa and Mosel, for example, in Kenya. A lot of people don’t have bank accounts in the traditional sense whereby, you walking into see a big bank, you have an account there the money you get goes into that account.
You can get loans, you can save in that account. Mm-hmm. That’s actually not the norm. When you come, for example, in Sub-Saharan markets. Mm-hmm. So we have a segment of a lot of people who are unbanked in the sense they don’t have those traditional bank accounts. But now through technology, you are having solutions such as mobile money that are coming to fill in that bank, that, that gap.
Hmm. Yeah. So that’s, that’s how we define that. Yes. Yeah. And , where are you at with the project today? , Talk a little bit about the numbers and the rollout of Chums app. Yeah. So we. We started building the, the idea started tinkering with it in 2019. I think it was my fun, my pet project during COVID in 2020.
Then once we had the minimum viable product, I shared it with a number of friends. Then I I also added a few co-founders who are very strong in, for example, things to do with investment and also additionally on the tech side. Mm-hmm. Then once we saw people actually liking what we had. And this has to do with how they are depositing money.
We went to the regulator in 2022 and we were given the authorization to go live the public. So since then in now we are clocking around two years and eight months, we’ve been able to mobilize people to save for over 1 million goals. Wow. Money that has been saved through the platform is over $50 million.
Something we’re very excited about, and I think that is very exciting. Congratulations. That’s like, that’s life changing money. It really is. Yes. And, and I think what makes it even more interesting is most people who have been saving on the platform a transaction is less than a dollar. So you find most people are saving less than a dollar on the platform.
But now you have a huge number of people who are doing that. And also the ones who are doing that, doing that multiple times because the app is guiding them to save. Based on what they’re doing every day or things that they like. So yeah, so we are, happy in the sense we are doing financial inclusion in the very sense of that phrase, financial inclusion.
And our solution has been used across board by people who are banked unbanked. And the, icing on the cake is the other day I was walking in the street, someone recognized me and she said hi, and she said. Her maternity plan had been purely done on the platform. Wow. Yeah. Which, which I felt it’s pretty exciting hearing people using it in all manual forms.
We have also seen people save for prosthetic legs on there. Wow. What an amazing story. And now you mentioned this is in Sub-Saharan Africa now, are you rolling this out to other parts of the world as well, or talk to me a little bit about that. Yeah, so we, we are live in Kenya. In Kenya. We have devoted the best savings up two years in a row.
Oh, congratulations. That’s a huge accomplishment. Yeah. In February we did a soft launch in Rwanda. And then the soft launch is to enable us to learn more about the culture of saving there. Mm-hmm. But also to make sure all the nuances we might have missed are cater for. And then now this half of the year, we are looking to go live into Uganda and Tanzania, where we’ve been given approvals.
Mm-hmm. Then, yeah. So something we are pretty excited about uh, yeah. Talk to me about your vision for this long term. Like where do you see this going? Yeah, so from where I sit we normally say there are four pillars to finance. You have savings, you have insurance, you have investments, and you have credit.
Of these four, I make a case that savings is the most powerful one because when people save, they can buy insurance, they can invest, and they get a good credit score to get. Good loans. However, the biggest issue with savings is habit. So the way we have approached this is we want to get savings, right?
We tackle that. People can save with ease. They can be able to save you things that they like based on their everyday transactions or things that, that they like. Once we do that right, and you get the critical mass, the idea is now to layer the other three key pillars of finance. Whereby through the platform we are able to now provide insurance or people who are, they have created goals for insurance.
can get a good credit against the savings they have on the platform. Yeah, and ultimately people can also get more investment options on the platform. But then our point of departure, or where we are starting is by making sure people can save. And key to note, there has been a very low saving rate in, for example, in Kenya, it being below 9% average in Sub-Saharan Africa being below 15%.
So. We are looking at making that work. And then we can introduce the other pillars, the other key three pillars of pillars of finance. And our view is doing that on, a continental approach, where in the next three to four years we’re targeting to be in at least 12 countries. Mm-hmm. Oh, that’s wonderful.
I’m curious about as you’re going, you know, from country to country, is the app change a bit? Are there any nuances culturally or otherwise? Or is it kind of universal, like in terms of its functionality? I’m just curious on how that piece works. Yeah. Well, that’s a great question. So one of the things you learn is savings is very cultural based.
Mm-hmm. There are things that are pretty much common across board. Like the motivation to save is there. Yeah. But then how people do it is very different. A case in point. You’ll find like in most Sub-Saharan countries, the biggest or the best way people save is when they come together as a group. So you have me, Adam, and maybe Irene.
We come together and we pull our funds and then we’ll be saving, we’ll set a schedule on when we’ll be saving. And if you go to the behavioral psychology balance, the reason why that work is because of the social ns. Mm-hmm. Us doing this as a group, it means it’s now something that is fun. Mm-hmm. It’s interesting.
We nudge each other towards achieving that goal. And if you, you as Adam, if you don’t save, then you feel like you’re letting the group down. Yeah. So that’s across both. So on the, what we have done, we have created a, group feature where people can pull funds, but then it also adds the social function you can chart.
If you deposit the app automatically tells all the other people Adam has deposited. Would you also like to deposit working on those nudges? Oh, that’s cool. Yeah. and Yes. So in that way there are things that are common. Mm-hmm. But then what we have tried again to make very be unique in each country, one of the things we are doing is localizing even the name of the app to each country.
Mm-hmm. In Kenya, we are going by the name tombs. If you go to Rwanda, we go by the name Zi, which comes from the word Zi, which means wealth. And for example, there you’ll find the culture of saving is very much inculcated in the way we do things. We find there people save more, they have more patient capital.
If you go like in a market like Tanzania there we are using a different phrase. We are localizing even the app in terms of the language so that it’s relatable. And also the fund managers or the, the fund managers we use for that market are local fund managers who understand how to position financial.
Financial products. The other last thing we are, we are trying to do is also hyper localize the financial language you use on the app. So when, the example I normally give for that is if you have grown up seeing goats and the examples we are giving you about financial literacy have to do with horses or cows, it’ll be a bit of a struggle for you to get the concept using things that are foreign to you, even in terms of examples.
And so that’s the other thing we’re trying to do to hyper localize the content based on the, the way people transact and how they understand how money works. We’re also trying to do a bit of that for, for each market, but we have, we do have a framework for that on certain concepts. Man, Sam, that makes so much sense.
I love it. It it, it’s so logical. It makes sense and I can see how people would use this and especially that gamification side of things, like it’s gonna help a lot of people. I think that’s wonderful. Sam, this has been really, you know, great having you on the show today, learning more about, your app and really how you’re, how you’re changing finance and financial literacy really on the continent.
That being said, if people are listening or watching this and if they wanna learn more about Chums app or or connect, I mean, how do people do that? Yeah, they can go to our website that is on chums, that’s chums io, ww cs io. That is CHUM There you’ll find our contacts, whether it’s partnership or reaching out.
If you want to talk to me directly, ask, just ask for some. The CEO and I’ll be happy to connect and we have a good conversation and we see how we can push this impactful agenda forward. Amazing. And for everybody listening, just so you know, we’ll definitely put the links in the show notes, so you can just click on the link and head right on over.
And speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with Mission Matters and you haven’t done it yet, hit that subscribe or follow button. This is a daily show. Each and every day we’re bringing you new content, new ideas, and hopefully new inspiration to help you along the way on your journey as well.
So again, hit that subscribe or follow button. And Sam, thanks again for coming on the show. Thanks a lot, Adam.
