The launch of the digital-first education financial services provider, Futurewise, aims to drive inclusion and educational attainment for the South African youth, according to investment group Kagiso Tiso Holdings (KTH).
Futurewise is a black-owned and controlled specialist financial services provider said to be a first in the South African financial sector.
The Futurewise education insurance offering has been designed as an annuity product that pays schools and higher education institutions directly every year to ensure that tuition fees are taken care of until the child reaches the age of 22.
The business went to market with its first offering, an education insurance offering, comprising three key pillars which include the payment of tuition fees and or other costs such as uniforms, books and travel (amongst others) in the event of a parent or guardian passing away.
It also includes an education investment fund to assist parents with saving for their children's tertiary education, powered by Nedbank Corporate and Investment Banking. A learning hub also provides content and products to support learners which can be accessed from the inception of a policy, offering discounts for educational products and tutoring services
Arno Jansen van Vuuren, the chief operations and technology officer at Futurewise, said the Learning Hub provided learners with access to education courses, tutoring support and partner discounts from their education partners, made available exclusively and for free to their policyholders.
“This means that our customers get meaningful value for their premium they pay from day one – not only in the event of a death. Internally we talk about creating a product for life, not just on death. That is our purpose,” Van Vuuren said.
The business is underpinned by a proprietary technology platform that delivers an omnichannel experience for their customers to engage with them on their preferred device and medium.
The company also said that it had also secured a number of high-profile education and retail partners such as HP, CodeSource and Skillshare, to form part of the learning ecosystem made available exclusively to all its customers.
Paballo Makosholo, the CEO of KTH and chairman of Futurewise, said they were driven by impact and they believed that education was a key tool that would ensure the future success of South Africa.
“I believe that this digital educational insurance solution provides a compelling value proposition that addresses a critical need in the South African market. I have personally secured the future of my kids by signing up for a policy,” Makosholo said.
The company said it was committed to creating an enabling environment that let children stay in school, complete their education, and become equipped with the skills they need to get employment in the future.
Futurewise was said to bring together the best of fintech and edtech to deliver maximum benefit to parents and guardians. It was built on the understanding that equipping learners with the means to complete their schooling, ensures a healthy workforce that would play an integral role in South Africa’s economic growth, well into the future.
Brent Shahim, CEO of Venture Capitalworks (VCW), said ‘the vision for the business resonated, the partnership with KTH was complimentary, the commercial opportunity was exciting’ and they were able to ‘leverage their experience in the insurance space’, so co-investment in Futurewise made perfect sense for them.
Makosholo said they were excited to bring this innovative educational insurance service to South Africans that had been seeking to secure the future of their children.
According to the eLearning Africa’s 15th international conference on ICT in education, training, and skills development (eLA 2022) held in May this year highlighted significant gaps faced by Africa. Exclusion from Edtech was especially severe for women and girls. This was as research showed that women in sub-Saharan Africa were approximately 40% less likely to use the internet than men.
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