FinEazy Momentum winner supercharges their career with a firm financial foundation

In June 2020, financial services provider Momentum teamed up with AI-powered chatbot, FinEazy, to help improve South Africa’s financial literacy by offering free access to their tool. The idea was for people to have fun while accessing crucial, financial literacy content.

In the two-month drive over 1 000 South Africans jumped at the chance, immersing and educating themselves in the free course. One lucky participant had the chance to win a two-week work experience at FinEazy’s offices in Cape Town. This honour was awarded to Nqobile Shabangu who completed the course and the FinEazy work experience with renewed financial and career-driven vigour to help propel Nqobile forward on a journey to success.

According to Claire Klassen, Momentum Consumer Financial Education Specialist, "The FinEazy course is designed to fundamentally improve the way emerging financial consumers manage their money. This enables them to make informed decisions when it comes to finances and help protect themselves, their families, communities, and the economy at large."

The FinEazy platform personalises the learning experience and can be easily accessed through common messaging apps or online. "The FinEazy chatbot tunes into the level of financial knowledge of users and guides them on their learning journey, to achieve financial literacy in a creative way," says Klassen.

Through the chatbot journey, participants choose a character that reflects their position in life and are then faced with fictional financial situations with multiple choices to make. Some decisions can lead you to poor financial choices, and others will help you learn about what it means to be financially responsible. Users are even able to ask questions and the chatbot will respond with relevant information.

"It’s like messaging a friend and can be done at your own speed and in your own time," says Klassen.

When asked about the experience with the FinEazy course, Nqobile says, “The course made me realize and think about how everything in life can be tied to finances. The way in which the course included stories that I could relate to, made it a worthwhile experience for me and changed my financial outlook.”

Nqobile says the most important lesson learned when completing the course was all about putting planning first. “If no plans are made around money versus your needs and wants, then you will be faced with unnecessary stress and you could take loans from unscrupulous sources,” says Nqobile.

Upon finishing the course, Nqobile was announced as the lucky winner of a two-week work experience at FinEazy’s offices in Cape Town. Having already had experience in this field as a Platform Engineer, Nqobile was excited to be put to the test in FinEazy’s Data Science and Product department. It was here that Nqobile was able to provide input into upcoming products. “I enjoyed being hands on with the data, doing analysis and giving my input on the next product creation. Being able to share my ideas with the team was a great experience for me,” says Nqobile.

Nqobile says this two-week FinEazy experience has reinforced their career aspiration of becoming a data architect but only after completing a BSc Honours in Physics.

Monique Baars, CEO of FinEazy was more than a little impressed by Nqobile. “Having them on the team was fantastic. Nqobile gave us valuable insight on the way we structure our product and user data. Nqobile also gave us a crucial perspective on our value proposition, having worked in the sector from both an agent and data science perspective. And the contribution to the team was fun, enriching and beneficial with both sides benefitting from the experience.”

Nqobile says, “Not only was the FinEazy team great to work with but their product makes it easy for all people to get in touch with their financial core, which is so important in these difficult economic times.”

Although the free version of the course is no longer available, Momentum was proud to partner with FinEazy to help so many South Africans learn more about effortlessly accessing fin-lit content. FinEazy helps everyone gain more understanding on your finances to improve your own journey to success.