FinScope Africa :: South Africa

FinScope™ SA is a comprehensive national household survey of financial services, needs and usage among all South Africans. It is designed to establish credible benchmarks and highlight opportunities for innovation in products and delivery.

It was piloted in 2002 with 1 000 households in urban areas. The pilot was followed by full scale surveys across 3 000 households in urban and rural areas in 2003 and 2004 and, now 2005-08, across 3 900 households. The survey tracks the changing landscape of access to financial services across all the main product categories — transaction banking, savings, credit and insurance. It highlights the barriers poor people experience in their lives and in accessing financial services particularly. The findings of the study assist policy makers in both the public and private sector to remove or reduce the barriers and to innovate their market offerings.

The sampling methodology was designed and compiled by Professor Stoker of Statistics SA, using the statistical frame of the Census 2001. The Enumerator Area maps, field work, data processing, analysis and report writing was expertly executed by Research Surveys from 2003 to date. The survey is conducted annually to fuel dynamic financial market development, by affording focus to drive product and service innovation.

Additionally a new segmentation model – the Financial Services Measure – or “FSM” was developed from the findings in 2003 and has subsequently been substantiated by the recent survey results. This segmentation model affords valuable new insights into consumer behaviour and, additionally, can be used in conjunction with other segmentation models, e.g. LSM. The FSM segmentation model has been successfully applied to both the Botswana and Namibia 2004 datasets, displaying sufficient segmentation capabilities to indicate that the model will prove to be transportable across other African countries.

The South African project was initially funded by the FinMark Trust with subsequent surveys undertaken through syndication with financial service providers and other interested organisations, including South African government departments. The 2008 South African syndicate members are: Absa, First National Bank, Liberty Life, Metropolitan, National Treasury, Nedbank, Old Mutual, Sanlam, Standard Bank and Teba Bank.

The 2008 findings were launched in Johannesburg on 28 January and in Cape Town on 29 January 2009. Please phone Jabulani Khumalo or Darrell Beghin at FinMark Trust (+27 11 315 9197) if you are interested in participating in the 2009 survey.