South Africa’s largest representative body for over 1 800 non-bank credit providers, MicroFinance South Africa, has rebranded to the Credit Association of South Africa (CASA), recently announcing this brand shift to members, industry stakeholders and partners at its 2025 Annual General Meeting in Johannesburg.

“The launch of CASA is another significant step forward to make credit a force for dignity, inclusion, and growth,” explains Leonie van Pletzen, CEO of CASA. “This comes after nearly three decades of progress, partnership, and purpose, and is our renewed commitment to serving the entire credit industry.”

“At the heart of CASA are our values that have always guided us,” she continues. ”Integrity, accountability, and inclusiveness, ensuring that every decision we make builds trust, upholds responsibility, and uplifts every voice within the sector.”

Founded in 1996, first known as Association for Microlenders, and then Microfinance South Africa (MFSA), the association became the trusted voice for credit providers. While its purpose remains unchanged to enable ethical credit providers to provide regulated credit and grow the South African economy, its focus is evolving.

“We are expanding our footprint, presence, and influence across our country, always keeping people and purpose at the centre,” says van Pletzen. “When credit works responsibly, our local economy can flourish by providing access to developmental credit for consumers that is regulated, thus keeping them from turning to the illegal credit market.”

From its microfinance roots, South Africa’s credit industry has become a dynamic ecosystem of innovation. Supported by technology, data, and forward-thinking service providers, it now drives access, inclusion, and opportunity nationwide. CASA brings together every part of the credit ecosystem, from community lenders to national players, united by a shared belief that responsible credit can transform lives and strengthen our economy.

According to van Pletzen, most of the leading service providers in the sector are Associate Members of CASA, offering critical solutions such as loan administration systems, payment platforms, insurance and credit life cover, credit bureau data, document verification, and legal or compliance services.

“These partnerships strengthen our members’ businesses and help advance a sustainable, responsible credit industry,” she states. “We will continue to equip our members with the tools, knowledge, and influence they need to succeed.”

Van Pletzen lists the ways in which the association will lead industry transformation:

1. Representing members through strong advocacy with regulators, policymakers, and stakeholders;
2. Creating platforms for collaboration, dialogue, and networking across the credit value chain;
3. Providing guidance on regulatory and compliance matters to help members navigate evolving requirements;
4. Building capacity through training, workshops, and practical resources;
5. Delivering insights and thought leadership to inform decision-making and shape the future of credit;
6. Promoting trust and upholding the reputation of responsible credit provision.

“We are driving transformation by supporting the development of a new generation of diversified, inclusive, and innovative credit providers that reflect South Africa’s evolving market needs,” reports van Pletzen. “We are advancing financial inclusion by promoting access to safe, affordable, and formal financial services for all South Africans, particularly those underserved by traditional institutions.”

“Together, we aim to help expand financial access and create pathways for economic participation for all South Africans, especially for those who are financially vulnerable,” concludes van Pletzen.

About the Credit Association of South Africa (CASA)

CASA is South Africa’s leading association representing responsible and professional non-bank credit providers. CASA exists to enable credit providers to thrive and to build a sustainable credit industry that supports economic growth and financial inclusion across South Africa.

CASA brings together ethical and professional credit providers to build a fair, sustainable, and inclusive credit industry, reflecting a broader mandate and renewed purpose to serve the entire credit sector.

It is a member-based, non-profit association governed by an Annual General Meeting, an elected Board, and specialised Board Committees. CASA is registered as a Section 21 Company (1996/001116/08), with MVB Auditors as its auditors and Nedbank as its official banking partner.

About Leonie van Pletzen

Leonie van Pletzen is the Chief Executive Officer of the Credit Association of South Africa (CASA). With 15 years of experience in the industry, Leonie is recognised as a passionate advocate for ethical lending, financial inclusion, and regulatory reform. She brings a wealth of expertise in industry advocacy, corporate governance, stakeholder engagement, and sustainable development.

Leonie has played a key role in shaping policy dialogue between government, regulators, and the private sector, and is an active contributor on various national committees, including the National Credit Regulator’s Credit Industry Forum and the Banking Sector Education and Training Authority. Her leadership is defined by a commitment to protecting vulnerable consumers while ensuring the long-term sustainability of responsible credit provision in South Africa. 

For interviews or further information please contact:

Claire Watt

The Friday Street Club

Tel: 082 490 3796

Email: claire@thefridaystreetclub.co.za

Western Cape MEC for Education, David Maynier, applauds the collaboration with Mellon Educate

South Africa, 19 November 2025 – As South Africa faces a national literacy emergency with more than three quarters of Grade 4 learners unable to read for meaning, 450 volunteers, teachers, and community members have come together this week to take on one of the country’s greatest challenges: teaching children to read and giving them the tools for a better future.

Mellon Educate, the international charity founded by Irish philanthropist Niall Mellon, is best known for building housing for 250,000 of South Africa’s most vulnerable families. This week, on the dusty school grounds of Cape Town’s townships, Mellon Educate’s 2025 Building Blitz is underway, the organisation is building literacy, brick by brick, classroom by classroom, including dedicated Literacy Hubs created for one-to-one tutoring and digital learning environments.

Western Cape MEC for Education, David Maynier, attending the event, said, ” We are very proud of this strong partnership with a school, Mellon Educate, and the Department, all mobilising around a common goal to improve literacy.”

The numbers driving this mission are sobering. According to the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS 2021), 81 percent of South Africa’s Grade R to Grade 4 learners cannot read or write for meaning. In the poorest schools, that number rises to nearly 90 percent. Without literacy, there can be no learning, no skills, and no opportunity. Literacy is the foundation of a competitive workforce. By ensuring every child can read by Grade 4, we unlock pathways to skills, employment, and economic resilience.

Building the Foundation of a Nation

Through its expanding Literacy Hub programme, Mellon Educate aims to reach one million children across the country by 2035, establishing 600 community-based hubs and employing 10,000 young literacy tutors. The model delivers measurable results: independent evaluations show literacy scores improving by 40 to 50 percent in one year.

“We’ve always believed in South Africa’s potential, but potential needs tools. Reading is that tool,” said Niall Mellon, Founder of Mellon Educate. “You can’t build a country if its children can’t read. For us, this is the next phase of nation-building; Bricks to Books. Every Literacy and Digital Hub we open is a cornerstone for South Africa’s future.”

South African corporates have both the ability and responsibility to help solve the literacy crisis by financing these types of initiatives.” Mellon added. “By supporting literacy today, companies are investing in the country’s future workforce and building the talent pipeline that will drive tomorrow’s economy.

The programme’s impact extends beyond literacy by harnessing South Africa’s unemployed youth to solve the literacy crisis. 90 percent of Mellon Educate’s tutors were previously unemployed, turning the initiative into a job-creation engine for local youth. In addition, three years ago, Mellon Educate were ahead of the curve, introducing AI technology and completing a number of monitoring and valuation studies, demonstrating the willingness of teachers to embrace AI as a way to help solve the literacy crisis.

Government and Community United

The initiative has the support of the Western Cape Education Department and aligns with President Ramaphosa’s Basic Education Employment Initiative (BEEI), and part of the national strategy to improve early-grade reading outcomes, declaring at the Department of Basic Education Lekgotla, earlier this year: “Not having mastered basic skills in reading and maths at foundation level sets the tone for how a learner will perform in high school and beyond.  So, correcting these shortcomings is the most urgent of tasks. It must be front and centre of our efforts in basic education.” Mellon Educate’s Literacy Hub model aligns with the government’s District Development Model, creating jobs, improving education outcomes, and fostering inclusive economic growth at the community level.

At ACJ Phakade Primary School in Lwandle in the Strand, one of the 2025 Blitz sites, classrooms that once stood broken are now full of colour, books, and sound.

Acting principal Mandisa Lehoke, watching a group of children sound out words together, added, “Mellon Educate has built a solid foundation for my school – it will not only give them quality teaching but, most importantly, quality learning.”

A Movement Born from Hope

This year’s Building Blitz is a collective act of hope. The 450 volunteers from South Africa, Ireland, the UK, and beyond, have arrived to build and teach side by side with local communities. The energy is contagious. “When you walk through a site like this, you feel the heartbeat of what South Africa can be,” added Mellon. “This isn’t charity. It’s shared humanity. The Blitz is living proof that when we work together – government, business, and citizens – we can move the dial on the things that matter most.”

The Literacy Hub model’s dual focus – literacy and livelihoods – positions it as one of South Africa’s most innovative responses to the education crisis. It blends volunteerism with sustainability, pairing early-grade learning with youth employment and community empowerment.

The Human Story Behind the Statistics

Moments of real, tangible learning are what the Blitz is built around; visible, emotional proof that progress is possible. Each photo, each sound clip, each interview tells the story of a country learning to believe again.

The Long View

Since its founding, Mellon Educate has mobilised over 36 schools and 100,000 children. Today, its Literacy Hubs serve more than 4,000 children across 17 schools, supported by the Western Cape Education Department.

The organisation’s next target is expansion into the National Programme with national partnerships under development to scale the model across nine provinces.

“We can’t wait for someone else to fix it,” Mellon concluded. “We’re already doing it, one reader at a time. South Africa’s story is still being written, and it starts with a child learning to read, and it is amplified by South African businesses jumping in. We need your help,” he urges.

FACTS AT A GLANCE

●      81% of Grade 4 learners in South Africa cannot read for meaning (PIRLS 2021).

●      Mellon Educate’s Literacy Hubs improve literacy by 40–50% in one year.

●      36 schools and almost 100,000 children reached (and counting)

●      90% of tutors were previously unemployed.

●      Target: 1 million children, 600 hubs, 10,000 tutors.

●      Supported by the Western Cape Education Department & President Ramaphosa’s BEEI.

www.melloneducate.com

Student Living Asset Management (“SLAM”), a South African real estate private equity fund specialising in student accommodation, has acquired a 51% majority stake in the landmark 1,026-bed residence in Stellenbosch called Academia. This makes SLAM the largest investor in student communities in South Africa’s most in-demand university town.

Located on campus at Stellenbosch University, Academia offers over one thousand beds across 28 landscaped blocks with a restaurant, padel and volleyball courts, as well as biometric access, CCTV, and 24-hour security. Established in 2000 and managed internally for over 25 years, it supports a 20% international cohort and upholds a strong Code of Conduct for a safe, community-focused student experience.

This off-market acquisition, completed in partnership with the existing ownership team, demonstrates SLAM’s ability to identify and execute complex high-value transactions of ‘best in class’ assets while preserving operational continuity through ‘best of breed’ operators.

“This will be business as usual,” said Ndumiso Davidson, CEO and Co-Founder at SLAM. “SLAM invests in assets of scale in defensive locations with a strong operating track record and demonstrable long term student demand.

Academia exemplifies the profile of assets we seek to provide our investors. We are joining forces with the existing leadership team. There will be no disruption, no staff overhaul, and no operational restructuring. We’re here to build on a strong foundation, not to fix an operation that’s already working exceptionally well and has been the residence of choice in Stellenbosch for the last 25years.”

SLAM is backed by a consortium of institutional investors including pension and provident funds, reflecting confidence in the long-term yield and social impact of the student accommodation sector. SLAM, which is led and managed by an investment team with more than 35 years of experience in investing, developing and operating student accommodation, is also a Level 1 B-BBEE entity committed to ESG principles, with all assets progressing toward EDGE certification.

“This acquisition is a strategic anchor for our national portfolio,” added Romeo Makhubela, Chairman of SLAM. “It reflects our belief in this sector’s potential to deliver dependable inflation-beating income while directly supporting educational outcomes and youth development.”

With this transaction, SLAM signals its intent to consolidate and develop high-performing assets in key university towns across South Africa, building a portfolio that combines resilience, stability, and commercial strength with national impact.

For more information, visit www.slaminvest.com

In a dynamic shift that places South Africa at the forefront of global call centre AI innovation, two homegrown technology pioneers, Saigen and Callbi, are to enable a seamless switch between languages mid-conversation across South Africa’s most commonly spoken languages, including isiZulu, Sesotho, Setswana, Afrikaans and English.

For South African businesses operating in a uniquely multilingual society, there is a real need to serve customers across a wide range of languages, dialects, and cultural nuances. Traditional speech analytics tools – often built in and for monolingual English markets – simply fall short.

Dr Etienne Barnard, Saigen.

“Calls may begin in English, but they don’t always stay there,” says Dr Etienne Barnard, co-founder of Saigen and one of the country’s foremost authorities on speech technology. “We’ve designed our models to adapt in real time to the natural flow of multilingual dialogue. And now, with the addition of Generative AI, we’re able to go far beyond transcription; we’re turning speech into strategy.”

AI labs

This advancement has been made possible through the launch of Callbi AI Labs within the last year, a collaborative innovation initiative formed by Saigen, Callbi, and strategic investor Alphawave. By combining state-of-the-art large language models with real call centre data, Callbi AI Labs is enabling the development of solutions that were previously out of reach, from instant post-call summaries and automated compliance verification to real-time agent guidance and emotion detection.

With over 100 clients already using the platform, actionable intelligence is helping local businesses move beyond gut feel and anecdotes to truly understand what drives performance in customer-facing teams by accessing what is being said in a customer’s preferred language.

Standardising quality

The impact on service and operational efficiency is profound. Companies now have the ability to evaluate agent performance objectively, identify coaching opportunities, and standardise service quality across teams. Traditionally, call centre managers have relied on intuition and limited call sampling to assess their agents. Now, with an AI-powered voice analytics platform, they can analyse every call at scale, with insight into what makes top performers succeed.

“A good call centre manager has an intuitive understanding of their team,” explains Dr Charl van Heerden, CEO of Saigen. “But intuition alone isn’t enough. With our subsidiary, Callbi, we provide clear, data-driven evidence of where agents are excelling or struggling. And when you combine that with multilingual capability, you start to see a deeper, more human layer of insight emerge.”

Language matters

One of those insights, uncovered through AI-led analysis, revealed that agents who switched to a customer’s first language during a call were consistently more successful in building trust, resolving issues, and creating a sense of comfort. This multilingual agility – until now unmeasured – proved to be a powerful differentiator in service outcomes, demonstrating the vital role of language in effective customer engagement.

The addition of Callbi ‘Agent Assist’, a new feature enabled by Generative AI, marks a further leap forward in call centre AI. Rather than replacing human agents, the tool enhances their capabilities, generating accurate call summaries, drafting follow-up emails, and suggesting next-best actions in real time. By reducing cognitive load, the feature allows agents to stay focused on the customer, rather than multitasking with notetaking and admin during the call.

“We’re beyond automating workflows, we’re amplifying people,” says Dr Barnard. “Agent Assist is about supporting humans with AI, not replacing them. This is the future of customer service: smarter, faster, and more emotionally aware.”

Local and global

The commercial potential of this AI-powered approach to customer experience has not gone unnoticed. Alphawave, the venture builder behind Saigen and Callbi’s growth, has committed significant investment and strategic support to scale this technology both locally and globally. For Alphawave CEO Frans Meyer, the opportunity extends beyond individual product success; it’s about creating a thriving ecosystem of deep-tech innovation in Africa.

“Saigen and Callbi are delivering exactly the kind of breakthrough Alphawave looks for: real AI, solving real problems, with clear market demand,” says Meyer.

“We fund ideas and experts, but are most interested in building companies. With 16 portfolio businesses and over 200 engineers at our disposal in Stellenbosch, we’re able to connect the dots across sectors, deepen the opportunity, and help bring these technologies to maturity. Multilingual voice AI is not just a competitive advantage, it’s going to be one of Africa’s most valuable exports.”

As companies worldwide search for ways to modernise their customer engagement strategies, improve compliance, and drive operational excellence, local expertise is proving that the answer lies not just in smarter technology, but in technology that truly understands people, in every language spoken in South Africa.

INTERACTION ON DIFFERENT LEVELS

 Moreover, the seamless integration of all components using the TIA Portal and the Profinet backbone ensures optimum data visibility. Reliable industry-grade components from Siemens are used on all levels to ensure high plant availability.

“Siemens provided digitalisation, flexibility, and customisation in deploying the technology, which was the right fit for the project. Based on close cross-collaboration between all our divisions, several elements from the Siemens portfolio could be successfully integrated. The fact that it was all brought together by our Totally Integrated Automation (TIA) Portal makes it even better,» says Sabine Dall’Omo, CEO of Siemens South Africa.

SO MUCH MORE THAN WATER

 Since starting operation, the plant has continued to provide not only a reliable source of drinking water, but also jobs for the local population. “With this project, we are also helping to develop local skills. Staff of the operating company Water Utilities Corporation received training at the Siemens Sitrain center in Midrand, South Africa, and in Botswana. Now they can utilise these skills to run the plant,” explains Mike Tearnan.

“This deep involvement of the people at the site is a significant factor for successful project implementation.”

MAKING DIGITALIZATION HAPPEN

 With the treatment plant in full operation, Mike Tearnan already has plans to expand the services that Moreflow is able to offer to customers based upon the Siemens digitalisation portfolio: “We look forward to introducing the digital twin concept in future projects. This will allow us to do an upfront design confirmation to better mitigate project challenges, which will translate into significant cost savings and ensure that projects are completed on time. Moreover, we are looking at cloud connectivity to MindSphere, the leading IoT as a service solution from Siemens.”

These plans are well in line with Siemens’ digitalization strategy. “Digitalization provides important tools to network systems and to support novel approaches of data analysis in operation and maintenance. With our comprehensive digitalization and automation solutions, we are steadily increasing the adoption of innovative technologies and effectively addressing our customers› challenges,» explains Ralf Leinen, Senior Vice President of Siemens Digital Industries for Southern and Eastern Africa.

Discovery Bank was launched in a challenging economic space. As always, in such environments, there is always opportunity. If you launch something positive in difficult times, people are drawn to it and it’s easier to differentiate. We built Discovery Bank to be different from the outset – having a clear goal in mind to create a bank that does not fit the generic mold of banking but one that operates in an elevated category – a shared-value bank. Our business model: Discovery’s success lies in our Shared-value Insurance business model (with the Vitality health, drive, and money behaviour-change platform at its base) that moves beyond meeting customer needs to addressing fundamental societal needs. A healthy society creates healthier businesses and leads to a virtuous or self-reinforcing cycle of business, individual and societal benefits.