An education and communications platform, which is looking to add pension dashboard connectivity, has launched in the UK.
PensionSmith, which provides dashboard solutions for pension schemes, has been operating in South Africa and Namibia as ‘The Benefit Counsellor’ since 2019.
Speaking to FTAdviser ahead of the launch, Jaco Wasserfall, chief executive and founder of PensionSmith, said the UK has been on its radar for the last 12 months.
He said: “We have done a lot of work in the last four years to build a platform that's super easy to use, easy to configure, member friendly, simple, and [to do that] is much more difficult than it often sounds because we get so lost in financial jargon.
“It’s like the onion, we’ve been peeling back, peeling back, peeling back, so we think the product is in a really good space.”
Wasserfall said the firm does need to do a couple of tweaks for the UK market such as language changes.
“The good thing is you can adapt so quickly and we can roll out updates on an almost daily basis to cater for the market,” he said.
The firm has spent the past four years developing its platform and said it is now the leading recognised provider in South Africa.
The platform offers tools for member communication, member education, and will add a pension dashboard connection that allows members to view and interact with all their pension plans in one safe and secure place.
It is white labelled which means each scheme or administrator can customise and establish an online experience that suits their own requirements.
Wasserfall said his aim is to bring pensions into the digital age with a members first approach.
“Using tools like WhatsApp, gamified reward systems and interactive visuals such as videos and animation our mission is to educate and empower members,” he said.
“In South Africa we already have over 400,000 active members, with a monthly engagement rate of over 50 per cent. With over 14mn WhatsApp messages sent in the last 12 months, along with over 100,000 member chats, our statistics clearly demonstrate that providing members with fingertip access to their pensions really does engage and empower them to take an active role in their finances.”
Wasserfall added: “Implementing any kind of technology does not come without challenges, but dashboard in particular has some unique hurdles, which is clearly why the UK rollout has been delayed.”
He explained that the firm experienced and overcame similar challenges in South Africa and is encouraging the industry to use this rollout delay wisely, “treating it as an unexpected gift that allows time to really focus on the needs of the members”.
“We’re confident and excited to bring our accumulated knowledge and skills to the UK and help schemes reshape how they engage, interact and educate their members in a way that works for them.”
Wasserfall added: “We're very excited about getting to the UK and officially launching PensionSmith in the UK. We've been working on it for quite a while so to get live and to really launch officially is the first step of many and we're excited to see what happens.”
sonia.rach@ft.com
What do you think about the issues raised by this story? Email us on ftadviser.newsdesk@ft.com to let us know
