Jenny Hoffmann has twenty years experience in financial services, mainly involved in deepening the accessibility to financial services to the mass market both through appropriate product and channel design and the use of technology.
After qualifying as a chartered accountant Jenny began her career (1987 – 1991) as an auditor and financial advisor mainly to NGOs and trade unions in South Africa. She then helped to set up and manage one of the first organizations in South Africa specifically providing loan products for small business and housing to the low end of the market and the unbanked. (1991-1994). Her responsibilities covered setting up the financial and debtors system and participating in the strategy formulation and product design.
After a period of playing a variety of management roles in development finance organizations including a para statal wholesaling to micro finance organizations and an equity investor Jenny joined Teba Bank as the Managing Director (1999-2004). When she joined the organization it was an unregulated savings fund with one product (current savings) and a narrow target market (mineworkers and their families in southern Africa).
Jenny led the transformation by acquiring a full commercial banking license, broadening the products and the market and adding transactional banking and a debit card offering linked to a POS on which accounts could be opened and managed i.e. balance enquiries, mini statements and cash back. The bank therefore joined the national payments system and the card associations. She also oversaw the introduction of the bank’s first market research and product development department which used a variety of innovative research and communication methodologies designed to be acceptable to the mass market.
The acquisition of a banking license also required the introduction of new skills such as risk and compliance and the design of an enterprise wide risk framework. The expansion and increasing complexity of the bank also required a change in banking system and this implementation was successfully achieved in 2003.
Jenny became the CEO of MTN Banking (2005-6) a mobile banking joint venture between MTN and Standard Bank, during the design and implementation phase into launch (August 2005) and start up. This period involved the evolution of the business model to ensure adequate incentivisation for all parties, experimenting with a variety of market approaches to improve trust and understanding and adjustments to the system to improve speed, reliability and changes in the regulatory environment.
Both before and after joining MTN Banking, Jenny has been a consultant with RiskFrontier consultants, working with CGAP, a division of the World Bank and other international funders as well as ShoreBank International, on a variety of projects (Philippines, Kenya, Uganda, Maldives, South Africa) to advise management of small banks and micro finance organizations on micro credit, micro savings and banking technologies.
Jenny has an MBA from the University of the Witwatersrand.
