Fintech expands beyond savings with revamped app, Smart Salary, PocketApp redesign
Ten years after beginning as a digital savings platform, PiggyVest is expanding into a broader financial services ecosystem with the launch of Kids Accounts, Joint Accounts, PiggyVest Business and other new products designed for individuals, families and businesses.
The fintech unveiled the new offerings at OpenHouse 2026, its annual community event held at the National Theatre in Lagos on September 26, where it also showcased a redesigned PiggyVest app and major upgrades to its PocketApp and Investify platforms.
The event brought together PiggyVest users, founders, business partners and stakeholders from Nigeria’s technology and business communities for conversations around money, work, technology and the changing financial needs of Nigerians.p
The 2026 edition was particularly significant for the company as it marked 10 years since PiggyVest began operations as Piggybank.ng on January 7, 2016.
The company started primarily as a savings platform, spending its first three years focused on helping Nigerians develop disciplined savings habits. In April 2019, it rebranded as PiggyVest and expanded into investment products.
Co-founder Ayo Akinola recalled the company’s early days, noting that its first version was developed in less than a month.
Despite the modest beginnings, PiggyVest said it accumulated about N21 million in savings during its first year, an early indication of the appetite for digital financial services among Nigerians.
Building trust, however, remained one of the company's major challenges as it sought to persuade customers to entrust their money to a relatively new digital platform.
Over the years, PiggyVest has expanded from basic savings products into investments and a wider range of financial services, while tailoring its offerings to changing financial behaviours among Nigerians.
“People want to save. They just need the right environment to do it,” co-founder and Chief Operating Officer, Odunayo Eweniyi, said while reflecting on the company's early years.
The company has also gained international recognition. In 2026, PiggyVest was named among CNBC and Statista's World’s Top Fintech Companies, making it the third consecutive year it appeared in the Wealth Technology category.
Beyond the traditional 9-to-5
At OpenHouse 2026, PiggyVest's leadership placed significant emphasis on the changing ways Nigerians earn and manage money.
According to co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer, Joshua Chibueze, the typical PiggyVest user today is different from the customer the company was built to serve a decade ago.
More Nigerians now earn income through online businesses, content creation, social media, WhatsApp commerce, freelancing and other forms of entrepreneurship, creating financial needs that differ from those of people earning conventional salaries from traditional employment.
Chibueze said the company's ambition is therefore evolving alongside its users.
PiggyVest now wants to become “the financial operating system for the Nigerian household,” providing products that can support users through different stages of their financial lives.
“The PiggyVest of the past is very different from the PiggyVest of the future,” Chibueze said.
The new products unveiled at the event form part of that broader strategy.
Kids Accounts, Joint Accounts and PiggyVest Business
One of the new offerings is PiggyVest Kids, which allows parents to create accounts for their children directly from their existing PiggyVest profiles.
The product is designed to introduce children to saving and financial discipline while allowing parents to establish rules governing how the accounts are used and accessed.
The company also introduced Joint Accounts, enabling individuals, friends, families and partners to save towards shared financial goals.
For business owners, PiggyVest Business provides tools aimed at improving financial management, including expense tracking and cash-flow management.
The service incorporates existing features such as SafeLock and Flex Naira, giving businesses additional options for organising and managing their funds.
PiggyVest said accounts can be created through its app or website.
Another product, Smart Salary, is expected to launch the following week. The feature is designed to give users greater control over when portions of their salary become available for spending.
The product addresses a common challenge among salary earners — exhausting their income shortly after payday — by allowing them to schedule access to different portions of their earnings.
PiggyVest app gets a makeover
Alongside the new products, PiggyVest unveiled a redesigned version of its main app, with the company describing the new experience as smaller, faster and easier to navigate.
Users can now fund their PiggyBank accounts through direct bank transfers, while Group Target Savings has also been simplified to make collaborative saving easier.
The company is also expanding its dollar offering through Flex Dollar, which can now be funded through an account number.
PiggyVest said further developments would include stablecoin options and easier transfers between Flex Dollar accounts and PocketApp.
The changes reflect the company's attempt to build a broader financial platform around the different ways Nigerians save, spend, invest and receive money.
PocketApp gets complete overhaul
PocketApp, PiggyVest's payments platform, also received a major redesign.
Akinola, who led the work on the platform, said the team reassessed the product and concluded that a complete overhaul was necessary.
The redesigned PocketApp features a cleaner interface intended to make checking balances and carrying out transactions easier.
Among the new features is Quick Send, which allows users to save payment details for people they frequently transact with.
Scan to Pay has also been introduced, enabling users to scan account information before reviewing and confirming transactions.
The new Split feature allows users to generate payment links for shared expenses, including situations where some participants do not have Pocket accounts.
The app also brings bills and utilities together, while giving users access to events and ticket purchases within the platform.
Akinola said the long-term ambition is to position Pocket as a comprehensive payments solution, including through the introduction of Pocket ID to simplify transactions.
The company has also introduced a new approach to customer support. Users can shake their phones to report issues, allowing the company to receive feedback directly from the app.
A new chapter
The series of product launches marks a significant change in PiggyVest's evolution.
When the company launched in 2016, its core proposition was straightforward: help Nigerians save money by creating mechanisms that made it harder for users to spend their savings impulsively.
A decade later, its ambitions extend across savings, investments, payments, salary management, family finance, business banking and dollar-based financial services.
The evolution reflects the changing financial realities of its users, many of whom now combine salaried employment with entrepreneurship, online businesses, freelancing, content creation and other sources of income.
At the close of OpenHouse 2026, Eweniyi outlined the company's broader ambition for its next decade — helping users access wealth, move more easily between saving and banking, protect themselves against financial setbacks and access financial services beyond Nigeria.
For PiggyVest, the next phase is therefore less about being a platform where Nigerians simply put money away and more about becoming an integrated part of how households and businesses manage money.
The company's latest products — from Kids Accounts and Joint Accounts to PiggyVest Business, Smart Salary and the redesigned PocketApp — represent the clearest expression yet of that shift.