You may have known someone like Yaw in high school, with a knack for understanding risk and the fortitude to take it. At the Accra Academy, Yaw noticed several high school classmates regularly unable to travel home for holidays. While the obvious possibility of giving schoolmates money to go home for the holidays was there, Yaw thought differently and saw an opportunity to create a more sustainable system that would benefit more of his peers. Yaw launched his company, Apex Loans, to assist these fellow students. Apex loans extended loans from capital borrowed by fellow partners and provided its lenders a return through earnings from the interest it charged borrowers. Yaw was 16.
Since then, Apex has been renamed to Student Aid Plus and now has a savings plan, financial literacy sessions led by invited professionals, and almost a hundred student volunteers. Student Aid Plus also has 55 shareholders that receive dividends. Its loan default rate is 0%. Yaw’s goals are to continue to grow the business horizontally into other schools that might benefit from their services and to also expand vertically in offering more services as students might need.
Yaw’s team ultimately aims to launch a business he calls the African Business Capital fund, whose focus will be financing promising startup business ventures across Africa.
Today Yaw is involved in Junior Acievements Ghana, has assisted with the creation of 3 start ups. He currently works with Orios Group, a holding company committed to redefining wealth creation in Africa.
