For more than 100 years we have made it our mission to find new and better ways to serve our clients, communities, country and continent. We’ve continually evolved our brand, our business, our products and our culture in order to add value to many lives.

And now, as we step into another exciting phase of our journey, we are transforming ourselves into a digitally-led purpose driven group to enable financial inclusion across the African continent, inclusion that will give Africans access to financial services at scale.

OUR STORY
We have had many firsts across the years all of them focused on helping our clients live with financial confidence.

Industry-leading products
Driven by our passion for helping people thrive financially, we became the first insurer to offer comprehensive personal cover and standard life cover for people living with HIV, empowering those impacted by the epidemic to still provide for their loved ones.

Evolving our products to meet the changing needs of society also led to Sanlam becoming the first insurer to offer disability cover, ensuring that families who are impacted by loss of income through disability are taken care of financially.

Transformation

We are committed to creating equal opportunities for all. In 2004, we were the very first company in South Africa to broker a major black empowerment deal when we partnered with Ubuntu-Botho. The sale of 8% of our shares to the Ubuntu-Botho consortium ushered in a new era of business and socioeconomic growth for Sanlam. The deal created R15- billion in value for beneficiaries.

Democratising investments
Accessible and affordable investing was introduced to South Africans when we launched Satrix, South Africa’s first exchange-traded fund business, in 2000. This was a huge disruption to the investment space which previously was relatively inaccessible to those with less to invest. Satrix’s partnership with EasyEquities later took this further, making it simple for anyone to own a share of the market; investing can now start from as little as R5. This commitment to equalising investing opportunities has made Satrix the ‘people’s brand’. As well as opening investments to more people, Satrix pioneered the introduction of passive investing, a space which it still dominates.

Investing for sustainability
One of the strongest articulations of our purpose is our passionate commitment to evolving into the continent’s preeminent sustainable investment group via our investment arm, Sanlam Investments (SI). SI’s goal is to unlock opportunities for its clients while making a positive impact on the planet. Focusing on impact investing and ESG, SI catalyses robust financial and social returns. Partnerships with Climate Fund Managers and Robeco are helping SI innovate to realise its goals.

Satrix has led in the sustainable space too, launching South Africa’s first socially responsible ETFs – the Satrix MSCI World ESG Enhanced ETF and Satrix MSCI EM ESG Enhanced ETF in 2018.

Investing in financial education
Changing the world starts with our youth. We are so proud to have developed the Sanlam Savings Jar – an augmented reality savings app. It starts children as young as seven on a positive savings journey to learn the habits that’ll help them become prosperous, independent adults.

To innovate financial education, we’ve turned to our brand and marketing in many instances, using creative platforms to equip South Africans with savvy money skills. The Sanlam Moola Money Family Game Show was South Africa’s first financial services TV game show. Additionally, award-winning initiatives like One Rand Man, One Rand Family and Conversations with Yourself and a host of others have helped us cut through the clutter and get audiences excited to learn how to better manage and grow their money.

We also need to capacitate our youth in the core capabilities needed for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. As part of this, Sanlam awarded scholarships to 90 South Africans to attend the UCT Online High School in 2022. By investing in their potential now, we will secure a better future for these exceptional young South Africans.

LOOKING AHEAD
To become a Pan African champion we need innovative partnerships and much of our future success will lie in continuing to forge innovative partnerships with Insurtech companies that use technology to cost-efficiently broaden access to a large underinsured and uninsured market.

We were a founding African partner for Plug n Play in Silicon Valley in 2018, which has given us access to some of the leading players in Insurtech across the value chain globally. Our innovative Indie offering is a product of this – life insurance that creates wealth. Our recent InsurTech alliance with MTN will see our products being distributed across Africa through MTN’s mobile financial services business. Again, this’ll make a massive difference in broadening access.

Innovation is a tool that allows us to turn purpose into action. In 2022, we’ll continue to help more people to live with confidence as part of our overarching purpose to unlock potential and build a better Africa for the next generation to inherit.