Financial Literacy levels in South Africa are relatively low, a culture of non investing (mainly due to economic concerns) further adds to a disconnect between the ”real” economy and the stock market, even though the two are fundamentally linked together with the prosperity of the country.
Into this quandary, entrepreneurs developed a APP tailor-made for South Africans that enables them to quickly and safely invest.
Franc was founded in 2018. After working in Discovery’s R&D lab and being exposed to a broad spectrum of financial services, Thomas (The CEO) couldn’t understand why only 5% of the country was investing, despite being top in the world for the search term ‘how to invest’.
Sebastian Patel (COO and co-Founder of Franc) and Thomas got talking and realized it was likely because of financial barriers, product complexity and limited access. Franc saw an opportunity to create a simple investment app giving access to leading cash and equity funds without minimums or limitations.
And so, Franc was born.
Since launching, Franc has won Best SA solution at MTN App Awards (2019), Voted best Financial App by Stuff Magazine (2020) and Best South African startup at Seedstars (2018).
