The launch of the savings game app here in St. Vincent and the Grenadines is being flagged as a tool to foster a culture of saving to drive business development.
The app which seeks to help persons understand the purpose and benefits of saving was launched virtually by the German Sparkassenstiftung for international cooperation through its local partner-the Centre for Enterprise Development-CED.
As he addressed the virtual launch general manager of CED Felix Lewis underscored the importance of saving in entrepreneurship. According to Lewis, many people approach CED with business ideas but no plan to save or know how to access finance to start their businesses and expect that they can immediately turn their ideas into commercial entities.
Lewis said that high on the list of constraints affecting the business sector is the lack of access to finance, especially at the early stage of business development, putting local financial institutions at risk averse. He said this is why the savings game is important.
Consultant Timo Bucher gave a demonstration of the savings game to close to forty (40) guests who attended the zoom webinar that marked the launch of the app. Both the business games and the app are sponsored by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).
The savings game is available for free in the play store (android) and app store (ios). In addition to English and German, other languages are expected to be offered in the future.