by S BIRRUNTHA / pic by TMR

PERBADANAN Insurans Deposit Malaysia (PIDM) and the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) in Malaysia announced their partnership to improve the financial health of 20,000 gig workers on GoGet Malaysia, an on-demand work platform.

PIDM said in a statement that financial literacy programmes that use behavioural science principles will be rolled out through the GoGetter app from January onwards.

PIDM CEO Rafiz Azuan Abdullah (picture) said there is a pressing need to help gig workers improve their financial resilience for the future, and equip them with the knowledge and tools to manage potentially volatile income.

“Measuring the effectiveness of the pro- grammes is also key to improving ways to communicate with this growing demographic,” he added.

Meanwhile, GoGet is encouraging its users to save their earnings and protect themselves for as little as RM1 a day through fintech partners such as POD, a mobile, goal-based savings app, and SENANG, an on-demand insurance technology platform.

Commenting on this, GoGet CEO co-founder Francesca Chia said the platform is committed to empowering people to earn in a flexible manner and making sure that its community is just as protected as full-time employees.

“Helping our GoGetters get access to benefits such as savings, insurance schemes and loans is key to making flexible work sustainable for the long term,” she noted.

Additionally, PIDM said the take-up rate of these facilities by platform users could also be used as a way to track conversions and measure the effectiveness of PIDM’s financial literacy programmes.

PIDM and UNCDF will also seek insights and feedback from participants upon completion of specific programmes, which would help inform the development of future programmes.

UNCDF global lead of financial health and innovations Jaspreet Singh said the fund’s research with several major tech-enabled gig work platforms in Malaysia shows that savings is foundational to people’s state of financial health.

He added that working with tech-enabled platforms like GoGet and fintechs like POD and SENANG allows it to programme in nudges at key moments of the user’s jour- ney such as getting paid or targeting these nudges to those most likely to save or buy insurance.

“Most importantly, it allows us to do these experiments at scale,” Jaspreet said.