Access Bank and Bettr team up to back the creator economy

Source: Supplied

With a world-class digital banking app, Bettr is built around Gen Z’s needs and career aspirations.

This is the creator economy boom (think YouTubers, Instagrammers, TikTok-ers, gamers and influencers) – the multibillion-dollar industry shaping the future of work as we know it - and Bettr is the first and only digital banking platform in Africa on a mission to enable creators to monetise their passions and bank their worth.

The fintech has recently fulfilled all regulatory conditions with Access Bank SA setting Bettr up for a public beta launch in March next year.

Building credit-worthiness

The Bettr offering is designed for the youth, who are underserved by traditional banks when thin in income and credit invisible. What's unique about the fintech is that it helps creators and Gen Z bank their income from multiple online revenue streams to build credit-worthiness and create wealth by giving them access to easy savings and investments from an early age.

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The Bettr app offers a transactional and a savings account with a competitive interest rate. Its digital-first card, powered by Visa, is enabled for scan-to-pay and contactless mobile payments. There are no monthly fees and all transactions within their ecosystem are free.

March launch

While essential services will launch in March 2022, the fintech’s product roadmap will be co-created with its creator community and software developers with its open-banking application programming interface (API). All participants are empowered to innovate and build the services they want and need on the Bettr marketplace.

“We are living in exponential times: it's a digital-first world, and changing faster than most industries can transform. The pandemic has propelled the creator economy into the mainstream, powered by everyday people monetising their passions to earn a living. This will have massive implications for the job market of the future and for South Africa’s 34% youth unemployment rate. Our aim is to power this growing economy of young creators with the platform, tools and resources they need to thrive,” explains Bettr CEO, Tobie van Zyl.

How Bettr works

Creators become Bettr brand ambassadors when they sign up and invite their communities to back their growth. When signing up, followers can tip, donate, buy from, or subscribe to their creators via their Bettr @handle. Bettr’s social-network payment features allow creators to bypass expensive gateways like PayPal, giving creators direct access to their followers to collect fee-free revenue instantly.

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The Bettr business model is designed to create mutual wealth within its network by sharing revenue with all participants. To kick off, Bettr has partnered with creator and influencer marketplaces to launch to over 250,000 creators with a 20-million strong Gen-Z follower base in South Africa.

Online banking is the future of Africa

Access Bank’s alliance banking strategy strives to partner with open-minded, future-focused businesses in the development of innovative offerings and the co-creation of unconventional banking products and value-added services. Agile, adaptive and flexible, Alliance Banking is firmly committed to partnering with fintechs in various industries and to thinking outside the box.

“Access Bank has a firm foothold and is well entrenched in the digital age, enabling us to make banking solutions affordable, versatile, efficient and more secure,” says Natasha Archary, senior manager of Product and Business at Alliance Banking.

“The world of banking continues to change rapidly, and the African continent is experiencing a proliferation of banking and financial services. Access Bank’s partnership with Bettr gives us a global advantage to reach Africa’s upwardly mobile youth in 12 countries and three continents, targeting key regions including Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and Rwanda,” Archary adds.

“The Bettr partnership further demonstrates Access Bank’s commitment to becoming the ‘World’s Most Respected African Bank’,” she concludes.