Our journey started in 2017 after our faithful Malawian gardener of over 8 years suddenly died of Volvulus (a condition that causes twisting or knotting of the intestines which in turn can block the intestine and obstruct blood flow). His wife couldn't even afford to provide mourners with something to eat, let alone repatriate his body back home. After seeing his family’s struggle and eventually assisting to repatriate his body back to Malawi, it became apparent that there are many African Migrants in SA and in the Diaspora who are in the same boat. This led to the birth of African Citizens in Diaspora (ACID).

ACID started off as company offering affordable Funeral Polices and Life Assurance products to the low and medium earning African Migrants in SA. As much as people were excited about our products & services and were signing up, most of them had to travel and spend unnecessary money to come to our offices to pay for their policies as they did not have bank accounts.

The ACID Life Services journey taught us that the challenges facing the African Migrants in Diaspora are many; one of which is lack of Financial Inclusion

We came to the realisation that:-

People need a partner to assist them to grow

Everyone needs financial inclusion especially access to banking services.

In the current economic conditions people need a partner in entrepreneurial thinking & support in running their small business initiatives.

For those fortunate enough to have jobs, there is a need to support them when there is more month than money left at the end of the month

Those not bringing money into the economy are looked at as a burden to the SA society & back home. This narrative needed to be changed via financial inclusion and provision of funeral polices so that if one passes away in a foreign country they will still be able to be buried in their country of birth if they so wish without burdening their family & friends.

We noticed that most of those operating in the informal sector mostly deal in cash due to high banking charges.

This led to the birth of a banking platform (ACID SmartMula) which allows anyone & everyone to bank smartly, conveniently and affordably