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.

CED General Manager Felix Lewis underscored the importance of saving in entrepreneurship when he spoke at the virtual launch of the German Sparkassenstiftung for International Co-operation (DSIK) Savings Game app on November 23. According to A release from the Center for Enterprise Development (CED) Lewis said many people approach the organisation 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.

“The early stage of business development is where the importance of savings is most prominent,” Lewis stated; “some ideas may never see the light of day as a commercial entity were it not for the respective entrepreneur’s savings or investment from family and friends’ savings. This is what is referred to as booth strapping, he added.

“ Even as the business grows, commercial loans require equity and retained earnings can be used for investment in the growth and development of the business.

“Savings is therefore an important discipline to encourage in the context of business development. It can make the difference between a dream and a commercial reality. The savings discipline however has benefits beyond the entrepreneurial context, it is a life hack that can be applied to normal family life, helping families to achieve goals and objectives related to elevating their quality of life.”

Lewis said 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, and so local financial institutions are risk averse. He, however added that this is why the Savings Game is important.

“This savings game app is timely since we are all going through a very challenging time economically, and an important factor in the transition to recovery has to be savings in conjunction to tighter budgeting. The usefulness of this tool will be beneficial well beyond this challenging period and can open up a revitalised role of savings as an important source of investment funds in the medium to long term.”

The idea of the app is derived from DSIK’s business games which teach financial skills through haptic simulations – true to the motto “Learning by doing”. According to DSIK’s Regional Representative, Uwe Pfeffer,the game play is easily accessible and applies to proven methods of the business games and can be used without prior knowledge.

“Nevertheless, it works perfectly as a supplement to the CED trainings so I hope that, in a very playful way, players from different target groups can work out their financial and savings skills in a single player mode,” Pfeffer said.

He, however acknowledged that for some people saving money is a very hard thing to do.

“…You have to be focused. During the game play the player has to answer several questions like how do I plan my budget sustainably, or how and why should I invest, or in what way can the bank help me? As you can see it is about real everyday situations.”

DSIK’s MSME consultant, Timo Bucher gave a demonstration of the Savings Game to close to 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 Co-operation 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 will be offered in the future. The app is available at: Official app store link:

(apple)  https://apps.apple.com/eg/app/the-savings-game/id1583366017

Official google play link: (google) https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.sparkasse.savingsgame.