PressPayNg, a digital financing platform for tertiary education, says it has reached and on-boarded over 60,000 Nigerian students and parents by providing funding solutions to beneficiaries.
It said this was achieved through its partnership with First City Monument Bank within nine months of the deployment of the platform/app in November 2021.
“The development has gone a long way to bridge the funding gap experienced by students and parents, offering them a suitable way to fund their tertiary education fees through target savings, scholarships, loans and crowdfunding,” the Team Lead, Technology Implementation of PressPayNg, Ebuka Nwokoro, told journalists at a press briefing in Abuja.
He explained that the app provided a transparent process where students and parents on their own could save towards paying for school fees.
He also noted that individual philanthropists, corporate organisations and multilateral agencies could fund students through scholarships and grants.
“The solution leverage funding from corporate organisations, such as FCMB and some private donors to provide the student loans at a single-digit interest rate,” Nwokoro stated.
He added, “To access the loan, students or their parents must have also saved up to 50 per cent of the tuition for the firm to pay the balance.
“Lenders can also use the platform to provide funding and crowdfunding support to undergraduate and post graduate students in Nigeria.”
Speaking on the 60,000-milestone achieved, Nwokoro described the feat as a major turning point in the commitment of the firm towards ensuring that tertiary education was accessible, affordable and attainable.
Highlighting the impact of the digital platform in the last nine months, he said, ‘’We have offered tertiary education scholarship and tuition donations to several students across the geo-political zones in Nigeria.
“We have also created a platform where Nigerian students crowdfund their education by generating a unique link they share with their community of friends, families, celebrities, donors, philanthropists and diasporans to enable them curate funding support in a credible, transparent, and seamless manner.”
Nwokoro added, “In partnership with FCMB, students and parents are able to open education savings account directly on the PressPayNg App where they save towards the payment of school fees in a flexible manner with several benefits.
“With FCMB, we are targeting 1.5 million students in two to three years with other partners like Cornerstone Insurance, Jobberman, Sunu Health, Mutual Benefit and Metro Health. We are offering easily accessible tertiary education loan to parents.”
