The SmartAboutMoney.co.za consumer financial education website has gone live under the tag line: “Empowering you to make good money decisions – an ASISA initiative”.
Leon Campher, CEO of the Association for Savings and Investment South Africa (ASISA), explains that the SmartAboutMoney website was created as an industry initiative to provide consumers with accurate, unbiased, plain-language information about regulated financial products and services.
“SmartAboutMoney explains the products and services offered by the savings and investment industry, but it does not provide advice or guidance. Instead it actively encourages readers to use their newly gained knowledge to have a meaningful discussion with their financial advisers before buying products.”
Campher says while SmartAboutMoney.co.za is collectively funded by members of ASISA—asset managers, unit trust companies, life assurance companies and investment platforms—consumers will not be enticed to buy financial products via SmartAboutMoney.co.za nor will they come across advertising.
He also points out that the website was designed to be brand agnostic so that it can ultimately bring together all stakeholders in the financial sector. “We would like to see other financial sector industry bodies join us in this journey in order to provide consumers with a holistic educational resource that covers all aspects of their personal financial journey.”
Credible content
ASISA tasked an independent team of content creators and developers to create a user-friendly website with easy-to-understand content. The comprehensive educational material has been developed by Laura du Preez, one of South Africa’s most experienced personal finance journalists. The content has been checked for accuracy by ASISA’s senior policy advisers (subject matter experts in their own right), ASISA member representatives and many other experts where relevant. In addition, all educational content also carries the approval of the ASISA editorial committee.
Campher says the content on the website will continue to grow and the content team is already working on a long list of future articles.
Content sharing
Campher says news media platforms are welcome to use SmartAboutMoney.co.za content for free, provided SmartAboutMoney is acknowledged as the source and a link to the source is provided as outlined in the editorial policy.
“The SmartAboutMoney team is proud of the original and credible content created and invites you to browse the content available on the website, which includes educational videos, interactive tools and infographics,” says Campher.
In addition to the educational content, there are some interactive features to explore on the SmartAboutMoney website, which include the following consumer education videos:
There are also a number of useful calculators to test, like the living annuity drawdown calculator developed with assistance from actuary Paul Zondagh at True South and the budget planner, which leaves users with a downloadable spreadsheet for future planning purposes.
We would like to invite you to spend some time on SmartAboutMoney.co.za and look forward to your feedback.
