The integrated member web, education and communications platform has been operating in South Africa and Namibia since 2019 as ‘The Benefit Counsellor’.

Having spent the last four years developing its platform, the firm has over 400,000 active members in South Africa, with a monthly engagement rate of over 50 per cent.

The platform offers tools for member communication, member education, and aims to add a pension dashboard connection to allow members to view and interact with all their pension plans in one place.

It is a white labelled platform, in order to enable each scheme or administrator to quickly customise and establish an online experience that suits their own requirements.

Commenting on the UK launch, PensionSmith CEO and founder, Jaco Wasserfall, stated: “We have spent the last four years expertly developing our platform and are now the leading recognised provider in South Africa.

“Our 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.

“With over 14 million 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 acknowledged that implementing any kind of technology does not come without challenges, warning that dashboards in particular have “some unique hurdles, which is clearly why the UK rollout has been delayed”.

“Having experienced and overcome similar challenges in South Africa, we encourage the industry to use this rollout delay wisely, treating is as an unexpected gift that allows time to really focus on the needs of the members,” he continued.

“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.”

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