12:00a.m. 24th September 2008

Youi bosses Howard Aron and Hugo Schreuder. Photo: Nicholas Falconer/178314

A second major South African financial services group has chosen the Sunshine Coast as the location for its Australian headquarters.

FirstRand, a leading integrated financial services company listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, has set up insurance company Youi in Maroochydore, with plans to become a major player in the Australian insurance landscape.

The move follows the success of Budget Insurance Group, also headquartered in South Africa, which has been operating its Australian contact centre under the Budget Direct brand in the Kawana Business Village for seven years.

Budget Direct employs almost 300 people at the contact centre on Innovation Parkway.

Youi has already built up a team of 42 people, predominantly in information technology.

But with the company about to roll out its product range across Australia, chief executive officer Hugo Schreuder said he expected the operation would have to relocate into bigger premises in the near future.

Mr Schreuder said the Sunshine Coast had been chosen after an exhaustive search across Australia.

“We looked at Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, the Gold Coast, Springfield ... before selecting the Sunshine Coast,” Mr Schreuder said.

“The fact it’s the second-fastest growing region in Queensland, it only takes a few minutes to get to work, and we thought there was a great work-life balance.

“Plus we got some incentives from the Queensland government. Their support was important.”

Howard Aron, CEO of FirstRand STI Holdings, said the company had been concerned about whether it would be able to source the employees it wanted from the Sunshine Coast, but both he and Mr Schreuder had been “very pleased” with the quality of people Youi had attracted.

Mr Aron said Youi had spent about 16 months researching the market to ensure the company understood what the public wanted, before coming up with a business model built largely around the internet.

“Clients will be able to do everything online if they want,” he said.

“They’ll be able to apply for insurance, amend their details, make claims.

“But if they need to, they’ll be able to speak to someone in our client services centre in Maroochydore.

“By streamlining the processes, and passing on some of the responsibility to the consumer so they don’t have to pay for someone to do something they can do themselves, the cost savings will be passed on through lower premiums.”

Mr Schreuder said Youi had flown largely under the radar to this point.

But he said the business was about to ramp up the marketing for its first product, car insurance, across all Australian states and territories.

“We’ve done a very soft launch on the east coast, and we’ll roll the product out across the country over the next month or two.

“Next year we’ll also be offering home and contents insurance, and ultimately our aim is to offer an insurance solution for every asset people have.”

Although it has a South African parent, Mr Schreuder said Youi would definitely be an Australian company.

“The company (FirstRand) is a major financial services group with a lot of expertise and backing,” Mr Schreuder said.

“But while that provides us with resources and capital support, we’re not a branch of an office of the parent company ... we’re an Australian company, building an insurance business for all Australians.

“And even though we want to grow as rapidly as we can, the Sunshine Coast is definitely our home.

“The whole executive team lives here and we want to support local initiatives and the local community.

“We think we can build something extraordinary here and definitely provide a large number of career development opportunities.”