Moonstone Information Refinery (MIR) marked a significant milestone this week, celebrating its 25th anniversary on Tuesday.
Moonstone began a quarter-century ago with a vision to support financial professionals with knowledge and expertise. From small beginnings, MIR has evolved into a diverse and integrated organisation, giving rise to several specialised businesses.
The Moonstone ecosystem includes:
- Publishing and research: Through Moonstone Publications, the company delivers industry insights, thought leadership, and advertising opportunities. Moonstone’s reach is extensive, with over 100 000 monthly website visitors and more than 40 000 subscribers across two weekly newsletters – Investment Indicators and Moonstone Monitor. Our Moonstone Update YouTube channel, with over 10 000 subscribers, provides high-quality content for industry professionals.
- Regulatory Examinations: Moonstone’s facilities are the first choice for most candidates who are obliged to write the FAIS-mandated Regulatory Examinations.
- Compliance and regulatory services: Moonstone Compliance & Risk Management offers expert advisory services, helping a variety of businesses to navigate complex regulatory landscapes with confidence. These services include assistance with new licence applications and profile changes on the FSCA registry. Moonstone Compliance’s services encompass far more than the FAIS environment. They include the Financial Intelligence Centre Act (FICA) and anti-money laundering, the National Credit Act; privacy governance; and employment law.
- Education and training: Through Moonstone Business School of Excellence and Executive Short Courses, the company provides industry-recognised qualifications, regulatory training, and professional development programmes to equip professionals with essential skills.
- Software solutions: Moonstone Software Solutions delivers cutting-edge platforms designed to optimise compliance and operational efficiency, streamlining processes for clients.
This interconnected ecosystem ensures that Moonstone can address a wide range of client needs. Our growth into a diverse organisation also reflects Moonstone’s ability to adapt to the ever-changing regulatory landscape.
When Moonstone Information Refinery opened its doors on 1 April 2000, it was unique because no business like it existed at the time, says founder and chief executive Hjalmar Bekker.
Many doubted the business would survive. Bekker says that as MIR marks 25 years, it is a source of satisfaction that the doubters have been proved wrong, and MIR is a sustainable business that currently has just under 200 people working for it.
Why ‘Moonstone Information Refinery’?
Back in 2000, it was known that the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services Act would have a significant impact on the regulation of financial services in South Africa. Bekker also recognised that financial advisers would be confronted with an overwhelming amount of information. The challenge was to take the mass of information or data and convert it into refined pieces of knowledge or information that advisers could use effectively.
This gave birth to the first Moonstone newsletter, the Investment Indicators.
The newsletters were also a way for Moonstone to become known when it could not afford to advertise in newspapers or on radio or TV.
Bekker recalls that, at the time, every life company had its own quoting system, which was installed on PCs; it wasn’t web-based.
“Every Friday, the annuity codes changed for the next week so that if you did a quote on an investment, the annuity code would generate the next week’s quotations,” he says.
Advisers had to update the codes every Friday, to ensure any quotations they provided to clients took into account the returns on offer the following week. “So, that’s where the Investment Indicators came in. We built those tables for them.”
The publication was highly sought-after because it saved advisers a lot of time.
“Advisers would use the Investment Indicators on a Monday as a sales tool with their clients. That created an awareness of Moonstone,” Bekker says.
We’re only getting started
Moonstone is “25 years strong”, but we have no intention of resting on our laurels. The group is gearing up for an exciting phase of development that will see it offering a broader range of solutions beyond those directly related to the financial services industry.
The expansion of our services around FICA compliance – encompassing many non-financial businesses – is testimony to Moonstone’s ability to adapt to meet the needs of an array of industries.
Moonstone will continue to build and evolve its technological capabilities, to meet the huge opportunities presented by Artificial Intelligence and related technologies.
AI will make it a lot easier for people to access knowledge, but Bekker points out it can provide only general guidelines for managing risk.
AI is not a replacement for a person who can understand the risks specific to a particular environment and generate risk management solutions tailored to that business.
A key aspect of Moonstone’s service offerings is working with clients as a partner to craft solutions that work to enhance their business.
Thank you to our clients
Moonstone Information Refinery’s 25th anniversary marks more than just a milestone – it’s a celebration of a vision brought to life and a legacy built on adaptability, expertise, and trust.
We thank our long-standing clients for your loyalty over the years and appreciate those clients who have joined us more recently.
As your trusted partner, Moonstone will continue to refine our services and products, to ensure that you are equipped to thrive in a complex world.
