Moneysmart, South Africa’s free, personal finance management platform online recently launched its beta version that is is now live!

This innovative online free platform, founded by Tobie van Zyl and Zulfiq Isaacs aims to revolutionize the way South Africans manage their finances to achieve financial success, through goal setting and shifting control into their hands. Moneysmart empowers people with Services, Tools, Education and Products to elevate their financial intelligence.

CEO Tobie van Zyl says that the path to financial freedom is to “budget what you earn. Save for the goals that you want. Aspire to achieve. Visualize your future. Invest in yourself.”

Moneysmart takes the work out of managing your money as it’s engine directly reads the user’s transactions and categorizes them automatically, providing an instant overview of ones current spending. Including an online community, end users will have access to expert columnists which will further drive engagement by regularly submitting content on trends, popular culture and financial empowerment to increase the financial literacy of the community.

Using bank level data security and security accreditation from VeriSign and McAfee, moneysmart ensures that all personal and financial information stays secure online. Moneysmart is also in a strategic partnership with all major, commercial South African banks to assure users of their safety and the legitimacy of the platform.

The main features of moneysmart include:

• Easily categorising transactions to track spending
• Setting budgets to monitor income versus expense
• Creating goals
• Engaging with an online community of lifestyles and financial experts
• Comparing and purchasing products suited to your financial needs

In just a few easy steps, anyone can setup a moneysmart profile and be on their way to achieving financial freedom through the control of their finances. The profile requires that the user set up a bank account of which multiple accounts can be created. The banks supported include Nedbank, Capitec, Standard Bank, First National Bank, Absa, Rand Merchant Bank and Investec. A customised financial dashboard then allows users to view their budget, statements, goals and financial summaries.

Moneysmart has a fantastic goal setting tool. For motivation to achieve goals that are setup, the user creates a vision board with the goal name, type and cost, image and finances. Once the goal has been activated, moneysmart will help to track it.

Future developments of moneysmart will include a Marketplace, where financial and lifestyle products will be profiled according to individuals’ personal and financial needs, as well as a mobile application due for release in early 2012. Users can ask service providers questions and engage with them directly and they won’t be fed adverts that have no relevance to them.

Though moneysmart is an SA initiative there are plans to take it to a global market. The platform has been built to allow for this and supports language conversion, currency conversion so that it can be adapted to new markets easily.

To start creating your moneysmart profile click here.