Legacy systems and traditional thinking cannot meet today’s challenges. In financial services the tension is particularly acute and incremental change is not enough. What is needed is a structural shift that places innovation at the centre of how organisations think, operate and create value — and corporate venturing can do that.
At its core, corporate venturing is about deep, collaborative partnerships between established institutions and fast-moving innovators. This is not about symbolic innovation hubs or scattered start-up bets; it is about choosing meaningful problems, backing serious solutions, and committing the institutional muscle to make them work to solve big structural problems.
For most large, incumbent corporates, especially in financial services, this requires a shift in mindset. Traditional banks are wired for risk mitigation, governance and scale. None of these naturally align with early-stage experimentation. But in a corporate venturing model, those capabilities become strengths when paired with the agility and vision of entrepreneurial partners. The trick is creating a space where teams are empowered to try, test, fail and move quickly.
When approached in this way, corporate venturing allows financial institutions to expand their relevance beyond their core offerings, without losing focus. This opens new commercial opportunities and positions the institution as a proactive problem solver — especially when those problems sit at the intersection of finance, technology and society.
The partnership between Standard Bank Corporate and Investment Banking’s Digital OneHub team and Robin Hood, a fintech venture designed to solve South Africa’s unclaimed benefits crisis, is a case in point.
The financial sector in South Africa is sitting on R90bn in unclaimed benefits — money owed to millions of people mainly from pension funds, dividends or insurance products. The current system for locating beneficiaries is fragmented, manual, expensive and ineffective. Most people are not even aware they are owed anything, and when they are contacted the process of claiming can often feel more like a fraud than a service, resulting in low benefit “claim” rates.
Robin Hood has completely rethought this model. Instead of tracing people using outdated records and ineffective cold calls, the Robin Hood approach assumes that if an individual has ever owned a policy, been a pension fund member, or had a formal job, the chances are good they had a bank account. Leveraging this insight, Robin Hood matches data from funds and policies with active, KYC-verified bank accounts to identify beneficiaries. Then, working through trusted platforms like the Standard Bank app, it notifies these individuals about the money they’re owed. In many cases, people log in and discover unexpected funds already paid into their accounts.
It is not about creating new accounts or pushing new products. It’s about removing friction, reducing barriers and giving people access to their money in a way that is simple and secure
This project is not a theoretical idea; it is already changing lives. In the first phase of the rollout, around 13,000 Standard Bank retail customers were successfully matched and are in the process of being paid. The results exceeded expectations, both in terms of match rates and user engagement. People trusted the process thanks to the Standard Bank brand association, responded quickly and got paid. For many, the payment amounts were around R3,000. Not life-changing money, but enough to buy groceries, cover school fees or afford the data they need to look for a job. In other words, enough to make a difference.
That is what financial inclusion should look like in practice. It is not about creating new accounts or pushing new products. It’s about removing friction, reducing barriers and giving people access to their money in a way that is simple and secure.
Importantly, it is not just the beneficiaries who win. Pension funds and life assurers are under mounting regulatory pressure to act. Robin Hood’s model offers them a faster, scalable alternative to traditional tracing. It also builds goodwill at a time when financial trust is in short supply. Liberty was the first organisation to pilot the approach, and the success it has already achieved attests to these mutual benefits. In just five months, the Liberty unclaimed benefits fund traced 4,300 beneficiaries, with R18m in benefits now being processed for payment.
Critically, this success did not happen in a lab. It happened because Standard Bank CIB has spent five years building a corporate venturing capability with a mandate to act quickly, the freedom to explore, and the courage to fail. Robin Hood offers proof that corporate venturing done right creates space for institutions to deliver social impact without sacrificing financial sustainability.
• Lamb is executive: head channels & partnerships at at Standard Bank Group's CIB Digital
For opinion and analysis consideration, e-mail Opinions@timeslive.co.za
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