Level Finance is a platform that allows employees to access a percentage of earned but unpaid income. For a lot of organizations, that's considered to be an advance, which is seen as a loan. This is very different. This is money you've actually worked and earned and you're eligible for.

It's quite interesting and it's not only in the South African community, but it's also actually quite a global phenomenon - I found out that in Macedonia, these loan sharks charge the same amount of interest they do in South Africa.

There are so many issues that need to be addressed around this. The first thing is if you look at the income data in South Africa from 2004 to 2019, real income grew by 1% where inflation grew by 18%.

The first thing is really a baseline assessment of the individual that's coming into the organization. I think it's building that relationship and understanding, "How much do you know about your finances?" When an offer is given, a lot of people are so desperate that they're willing to take anything.

The first thing we speak about is the baseline assessment. I think the only way we can understand how we use money is from the first three months of data we collect from the moment we start or are employed, and to understand our spending habits and our consumption habits.

There are a lot of organizations that are actually doing bad stuff. Some have been offering the service to staff and actually making interest from them, which is illegal in South Africa, but it exists. When we look at inflation, the debt to income ratio, there is a lot that needs to be readdressed in that period and I think COVID-19 is going to have a much bigger impact on that.

There are incentives that are put in place to be able to assess and grow individuals, not only in skills but in their income. So that when we start seeing that shift and that change, you potentially have a really valuable team player. And then it's how you keep those people within your organization, whether it's through being able to educate them, skill them, build confidence and remunerate them. That is something that needs to be done.

If we are looking at retention, if we are looking at valuing our employees to get them to perform better, there is effort that's required on our side. Whether we become coaches or financial advisers or provide support structures, this is something that's required from us in order to assist our employees.

As a female, rejection is the thing that I've really had to learn to accept. I used to personalize that experience quite intensely, especially because I am very much a people's person and when I form relationships and they say 'No' to me, I used to be like, "Oh, my gosh!"

There are so many different things. One of the interesting things we saw the moment we started this business was how it was getting into the finance space, like 'buy now, pay later" - Vodacom did it, Telkom has done it now as well, which is fairly interesting but doing it at a B2C level.