Old Mutual and South African Savings Institute join forces in meaningful Savings Month campaign partnership

The improvement of savings in South Africa is one of the major socio-economic challenges facing us as a society. A reversal of our poor saving record can only be achieved through a sustained collaborative effort, across the economy.

As a direct consequence of this, the savings and investment group Old Mutual South Africa (OMSA) is pleased to announce its recent collaborative partnership around the National Savings Month campaign being launched at the end of July, with the South African Savings Institute (SASI), an independent non-profit organisation.

National Savings Month is SASI’s flagship event for a savings awareness campaign that runs throughout the year. It focuses on building a financially literate and financially astute society with a view to promoting a robust culture of saving in South Africa.

This year, in recognition of the historic FIFA Soccer World Cup event on South Africa’s shores, the National Savings Month theme will be ‘Save for the Goal – the Path to Recovery’. With Old Mutual’s involvement, this campaign will call on all South Africans to focus on financial recovery as the goal for the year.

Considering Old Mutual’s knowledge and experience around financial education programmes, combined with SASI’s successful savings campaigns, the collaborative effort is sure to address some of the issues relating to the current savings habits of South Africans.

Last year Old Mutual launched the Old Mutual Savings Monitor which, on a six‑monthly basis, provides valuable insights around savings behaviours and trends within working metro households, and this source of information will undoubtedly benefit the various savings campaigns set out during the course of 2010.

Under the partnership, Old Mutual and SASI will be involved in a range of financial literacy campaigns aimed at the sports world, university student communities and the Teach Children to Save campaign. The climax of the National Savings Month’s activities will be the SASI-Old Mutual Savings Workshop scheduled for 02 September 2010 at the Reserve Bank Conference Centre.

Crispin Sonn, Old Mutual’s Director of Corporate Affairs, says: ‘While this partnership is a valuable endorsement of our existing financial education efforts, it also validates our view that no single stakeholder can hope to tackle the country’s urgent need to address its savings habits, for the benefit not only of the individual, but of the economic future of South Africa.

‘The partnership will also enable us to broaden our efforts beyond our current reach to assist as many people as possible in improving their current savings habits and aid in better financial planning - during Savings Month and for the rest of the year,’ Sonn adds.

The need for strong intervention during National Savings Month and beyond cannot be over-emphasised. South Africans are simply not saving enough, and debt is becoming a huge factor in this savings failure. Increasingly employees resign from their jobs just so they can use their pensions to pay off their debts. This creates a time bomb of individuals who haven’t provided for their retirement. The latest findings of the Old Mutual Savings Monitor - due out on 15 July - will clearly indicate the depth of this crisis.

Another element of the research indicates that the majority of employees understand less than half of the financial advice and information that is given to them. This situation is further compounded by a high unemployment rate and a poor understanding of financial matters, leading to a dismal savings trend.

Elizabeth Lwanga-Nanziri, CEO of SASI, comments: ‘This partnership between SASI and Old Mutual will see us progressing many strides towards the long-term common objective of ensuring financially independence amongst South Africans. South Africans who can make informed financial decisions to advance their well-being.’