Brandon, what are you up to?
I am passionate about expanding current financial services and education, which is something close to my heart. Creating solutions that benefit the diverse population of South Africa is a driving factor for me now and going forward. In my years of experience in the insurance industry, we have become sensitive to certain trends – specifically within the last few years.
We have noticed a move away from traditional insurance, and what we have seen is that catering to the individual within specific markets has become more prevalent, as opposed to the general “one-size-fits-all” solutions of the past.
In South Africa, the industry has typically created solutions for three core markets based on affluence, despite the fact that our country is far more complex.
It’s all about solving problems for the people.
How close are we to getting to really catering to people’s needs?
I think that we are getting closer and within my current projects we are very cognisant of meeting these needs. The projects which I have chosen to become involved in are centred around this. The hope is that the industry moves in this direction.
Can you tell us about your current projects?
The first one that I would really like to talk about is our education platform called ImfundoHub. It was born out of a passion to make learning truly accessible to all and is led by Dr Vashna Jagarnath, an educator who has worked across Africa to create transformative learning initiatives. Education in South Africa has faced challenges.
This platform provides learning material and support for all school-going children focusing on the syllabuses aligned to the South African CAPS curriculum. Beyond this, the platform also provides tutoring via WhatsApp, free books, quizzes, diagrams and an easy-to-use website. This platform also allows for parents to track their child’s usage and progress, making it an incredibly powerful tool for working parents.
Do the right thing and all will fall into place.
It was designed to be accessible with limited data usage because we are cognisant of the reality that the average South African faces. We have drilled down to the CAPS curriculum on a weekly basis to ensure that children have access to what they need when they need it. We also send age-appropriate books weekly via WhatsApp to encourage reading.
While I am involved in making ImfundoHub directly available, I am also working in conjunction with King Price Life to incorporate it into appropriate products in a meaningful way, bringing insurance and education together.
A second project is around microlending, which is a South African reality and in many cases a necessity. It is also an aspect of financial services that is regularly exploited at the expense of the customer. We are looking at how to responsibly meet the needs of these customers.
We want to positively impact people’s lives by assisting our customers to affordably meet their needs, build assets, increase income and reduce their vulnerability to economic stress. Taking this a step further, we have looked at creating a very affordable, accessible insurance product to protect the families of these customers in the event of tragedy.
Lastly, we found certain challenges within the investment sector around ongoing fees, which can discourage individuals from investing. South Africa struggles with a low savings rate, that results in many issues, including an inability to retire comfortably. In thinking how to address this, we developed a product called King Alexander, that effectively refunds investors the fees associated when investing should they not meet a monthly benchmark. The product also incorporates a guarantee that will protect your loved ones from market downturns that result in investment loss in the event of your death.
It is all about delivering practical, impactful solutions.
