Omnisient’s Gold Award for Data Insights and Silver Award for Social Impact Marketing awarded by the MMA of South Africa.
4 April 2023, Johannesburg, South Africa – Omnisient, a South African FinTech that enables the rapid sharing, discovery, and monetisation of data for financial inclusion, has won Gold for Data Insights and Silver for Social Impact Marketing at the 2023 Smarties Awards.
The Smarties is an annual competition honouring outstanding innovation and creativity resulting in significant business impact.
According to the World Bank, 1.7 billion people lack access to formal financial services due to their lack of a credit history. These “credit invisible” individuals face significant challenges in obtaining essential resources such as housing, education, healthcare, and capital to start businesses, leaving them vulnerable to loan sharks and high-interest rates.
Omnisient’s winning Data Insights and Social Impact Marketing entries were for its ground-breaking work with a leading African grocery retailer and local banks to help extend credit to unbanked or “credit invisible” individuals who would otherwise be declined due to lack of credit history.
The platform’s built-in advanced analytics enabled the banks and the retailer to share and analyse consumer data securely, ethically, and in a manner that complies with global consumer privacy regulations. As a result, the banks were able to develop and validate an alternative way of credit scoring unbanked people based on shopping behaviour that is 40% more effective than their current models and has brought the availability of financial products to 3.2 million new people.
Jon Jacobson, CEO of Omnisient, stated, “We are grateful for the recognition this award gives us for the impact our technology is having on growing financial inclusion in Africa. By overcoming the privacy and security challenges associated with data collaboration between businesses, our technology is accelerating the formation of ground-breaking data collaboration partnerships between the financial industry and retail, telecommunications, healthcare industries and loyalty programmes care that lead to life-changing breakthroughs for millions.”
All Smarties Award winners, including Omnisient’s gold-winning Social Impact Marketing entry, will be entered into the global Mobile Marketing Associations’ Business Impact Index (BII) Awards.
There are billions of people around the world who don’t have access to financial services like banking or insurance because businesses don’t have enough data to decide whether it’s a good idea to offer them these services.
This is a big opportunity for banks, insurers, and credit bureaus to help more people access these important financial services.
Omnisient is helping by providing them with a platform that lets them quickly and safely get information from other industries to learn more about these underserved people. With this information, they can make better decisions about whom to offer financial services to and optimise their marketing to grow their customer base and increase loyalty.
Founded in 2019 in Cape Town, South Africa, Omnisient has gained significant traction in the discovery and monetisation of alternative data, with over 70 of Africa’s largest banks, insurers, retailers, and health & wellness organisations forming cross-industry consumer data ecosystems that derive innovative insights that would be difficult or impossible to achieve alone. To date, Omnisient has protected and anonymously linked 148 million consumer records for data collaboration and data monetisation using our Crypto-Identity cryptography.
In 2022, Omnisient was recognised by the South African Loyalty Awards as South Africa’s most innovative loyalty technology. In March 2023, Omnisient was awarded “Most Innovative Financial Inclusion Technology for 2023” at the Africa Bank 4.0 Summit for its ability to enable banks to accelerate the discovery of alternative data for credit scoring of unbanked individuals, resulting in growing financial inclusion in Africa.
Comprised of over 800-member companies globally and 15 regional offices, the MMA (Mobile Marketing Associaton) is the only marketing trade association that brings together the full ecosystem of marketers, martech and media companies working collaboratively to architect the future of marketing, while relentlessly delivering growth today.
Led by CMOs, the MMA helps marketers lead the imperative for marketing change – in ways that enable future breakthroughs while optimizing current activities.
The MMA is committed to science and questioning and believes that creating marketing impact is steeped in constructively challenging the status quo encouraging business leaders to aggressively adopt proven, peer-driven and scientific best practices, without compromise.
The MMA invests millions of dollars in rigorous research to enable marketers with unassailable truth and actionable tools. By enlightening, empowering and enabling marketers, the MMA shapes future success, while also propelling business growth.
Julian Diaz is Omnisient’s CMO. Julian is a B2B tech marketer for start-ups with over 20 years of experience marketing in USA, UK, Europe and South Africa.
