Financial institutions in Africa have successfully plugged into the mobile ecosystem and deployed services that have revolutionized service delivery, transforming customer engagement touch points and feedback mechanisms as well as enhancing responsiveness of the financial institutions. In addition to this mobile tech has enabled financial penetration. Currently Kenya has 68 per cent financial penetration through mobile tech and is at 80 per cent in use. While many Social Security services providers use mobile technology, they are still to fully leverage on its capabilities.

Records Management is a critical part of social security administration. The inherent risks in poor records management are not only limited to incorrect payments but often expose the scheme to fraud, loss of data/information, compromised data integrity, poor fund management leading to non-realization of return on investment, litigation, etc.

The Social Security Regulatory Authority (SSRA) in Tanzania, was established under section 5 of the Social Security (Regulatory Authority) Act No.5 of 2008. Among other things, the Authority has powers to regulate and supervise the Tanzania Social Security Sector. The Authority regulates Five DB Schemes namely; NSSF, PSPF, LAPF, GEPF and PPF, it also regulate one Workers Compensation Fund (WCF) and one health Fund (NHIF). The Social Security Schemes have Regional and Zonal Offices across the Country.

In January 2015, the Seychelles Pension Fund (SPF) implemented a new pension formula, this was to strengthen the link between contributions and benefits and provide incentives for members to contribute longer periods as they benefit from a higher pension. Due to the complexity of its components (Average Wage, Annual Average Wage Growth, Accrual Rate and Years of Contributions), the pension calculator was designed to enable members to get an indication of their pension without having to understand the technicality of the formula.

The National Social Security Fund (Caisse nationale de sécurité sociale – CNSS) of Tunisia has for the past two decades faced problems relating to fiscal imbalance and budgetary constraints. This double bind led it to revamp its internal management style and methods of work by introducing a Lean Management approach. 

Prior to 2015, the National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) was only offering Inpatient services to the members on a rebate system. This arrangement was still deficient in breadth for some crucial medical services required by its members, specifically, surgical care and specialized laboratory investigations. This meant that members were still incurring out-of-pocket expenditure to access advanced treatment.

As part of the introduction of health insurance for private and parastatal sector employees in June 2014, the National Health Insurance and Social Guarantee Fund (Caisse nationale d'assurance maladie et de garantie sociale – CNAMGS) initially entrusted the task of collecting contributions to the National Social Security Fund (Caisse nationale de sécurité sociale – CNSS).

The unexpected separation of Southern Sudan from Sudan had a significant impact on the total economy of the state since 75 per cent of oil revenues which is produced from the south fields has gone to the new country. This new situation led to rapid declining in the rate of exchange of local currency and consequently weakens the value of our pensions. Immediate actions had to be taken in order to minimize the poverty among pensioners.

The National Social Security Fund for Non-Salaried Workers (Caisse nationale de sécurité sociale des non-salariés – CASNOS) oversees the compulsory coverage of social insurance and retirement benefit risks of independent farm and non-farm workers operating in Algeria. It manages the collection of compulsory contributions.

The farming industry experienced difficult times in the 1990s, during which farmers were unable to pay their contributions, resulting in the loss of all benefits for themselves and their dependants. 

In a fast changing world, effective data management differentiates efficient organizations from the rest. In the past, the National Social Security Fund (herafter, The Fund) struggled with data management. This process was manual and required a team of dedicated staff. Posting of contributions to member accounts witnessed delays and some cases, totally forgotten. The result was that in June 2014, The Fund had USD 30 million in suspense accounts. The Straight Through Process (STP) project for contribution collection was implemented to ensure that: