Old Mutual
“Can a 180-year-old African life insurer transform into an integrated pan-African digital bank and financial services group?”
Founded1845
HQCape Town, South Africa
IndustryFintech / Insurtech
The story
Founded 1845 as South Africa's first life insurance mutual, Old Mutual has spent the last decade building beyond life insurance and asset management into full-service banking. The 2016 partnership with 10x Banking culminated in a $135M+ investment and the 2025 launch of OM Bank — a cloud-native digital bank — converting Money Account holders to a regulated bank. In parallel, the SMEgo platform aggregates SME services (funding marketplace, payroll, accounting, insurance) positioning Old Mutual as an integrated financial services group rather than a pure insurer.
Last 12 months
Product timeline
0
Launched SMEgo platform for SME funding, payroll, accounting and insurance· lending
1845
Founded in Cape Town as South Africa's first mutual life insurance company· founding
2016
Partnered with 10x Banking in London to begin building cloud-native banking platform· banking
2024
Secured regulatory approval under Section 16 of the Banks Act in South Africa· banking
2025
Launched OM Bank nationwide, replacing the earlier Money Account product· banking
Regulated entities
3
regulatory licences held by Old Mutual
Licence types, jurisdictions and registered entities are in the Embedded Finance Index report.
The stack
7 layers disclosed in Old Mutual’s embedded-finance stack
Payments / PSP
Paystack (Old Mutual Kenya)
Banking / BaaS
in the full report
Ledger
in the full report
Lending
in the full report
Payroll
in the full report
Sponsor bank
in the full report
Accounting
in the full report
Accounting gap: minor
9 more providers across 6 layers, with confidence-scored evidence and source URLs, are in the Embedded Finance Index report.