A new locally-built payments solution app, called Karri, allows parents or guardians to send money to schools for their children's extracurricular activities, such as school trips or fundraising activities. This does away with the need for children to have money on them.
The app was created in partnership with Nedbank.
In the app, parents are able to view a calendar with all school events and activities listed. They are also able to see which of them their child is required to partake in. It also features reminders so that a 'civvies day' or 'sports day' never comes as a surprise.
When schools or teachers create events, push notifications are sent directly to the parent's account with details of the event.
There is also a transaction history so that parents can see how much extra money they have spent at the school over the year. The virtual wallet within the app can be loaded via EFT or credit card. The app can be used with any banking system.
The app was launched earlier this year and so far more than 20 schools are making use of it.
Karri works with the schools to formulate databases that link learners to their parents. Each child is allocated a code which parents use when signing up in the app, and this code automatically links their account to the correct child, says Ross Kohler, Karri lead engineer.
"We found that parents were struggling with payment of school events in a process were they gave money to their kids to take to the school, risking them losing it or getting mugged," says Kohler.
The company says this will help eliminate collecting, counting and banking cash, and reduce time spent on administrative tasks by teachers.
The app is available from the Google Play Store and Apple App Store.
It is free for parents to download, but "data charges do apply; the initial download is that of an average app size. Thereafter, the data usage is very minimal, much like WhatsApp," explains the company.
The app makes money by charging a small transaction fee on all money collected through the app. It says there are no hidden costs.
For schools to sign-up, they need to download Karri and there will be an option at the bottom of the home screen to contact someone from the product team.
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