About Aerarium

The problem we exist to solve

Around the world, people have always pooled their money and trusted one person to keep track of it. In South Africa it's stokvels and burial societies — an estimated R50 billion a year moving through savings groups, most of it still tracked the way it was fifty years ago: a notebook, a WhatsApp message, someone's memory of who paid what. The same pattern shows up everywhere, under different names — investment clubs, savings circles, community funds. It works, until it doesn't. A missed entry. A dispute at the meeting nobody can settle. A treasurer who's completely honest, but has no way to prove it.

That gap — between honest treasurers and the suspicion they can't shake — is where trust breaks down, and where digitising these groups has repeatedly failed, because every previous attempt asked people to hand over their money to use it.

What we do

Aerarium is a record-keeping and transparency tool for stokvels, burial societies, investment clubs, and savings groups of every kind. A treasurer signs in and records what's happened — contributions, payouts, loans given out and repaid. Every member gets one link. No account, no app to install, no password to remember. They open it, they see their own name, their own history, in the group's own record.

That's the whole idea: not a better way to hold money, but a better way to show it.

What we don't do

We never hold, move, or touch your group's money. Contributions, loans, payouts — all of it stays exactly where your group already keeps it, in whatever bank account or arrangement you already trust. We are a record, not a bank.

We don't give financial advice. We don't calculate interest, set repayment terms, or manage debt. What your group invests in, lends, or saves toward is your business — we simply write down what you tell us.

We don't share anyone's information without their own consent — not even with the treasurer's permission on their behalf. That's not a policy we could relax if we wanted to; it's built into how the system works.

Who we build this for

Treasurers who are tired of being the only one who knows the numbers, and want a record that speaks for them.

Members who want to check their own contribution history without having to ask.

Groups that lend or invest their members' money and need to know, clearly, what's out and what's come back.

Committees who need more than one person able to see and manage the books, without losing track of who did what.

Whether you call it a stokvel, a burial society, an investment club, or a savings group — if people are pooling money and trusting one person to track it, this is built for you.

Where we're from

Aerarium is built in South Africa, home to one of the world's largest savings-club movements, and built for groups everywhere that work the same way.