Mukuru expands to more African countries
Cape Town-based remittance and money transfer business, Mukuru, has said that more customers joined its platform after informal platforms took a knock during the Covid-19 lockdown.
Mukuru chief executive Andy Jury said Mukuru has now partnered with WorldRemit, the online money transfer business that provides international money transfer services in more than 50 countries, to expand its network into Zimbabwe.
Jury said the Mukuru-WorldRemit alliance had been a fantastic example of a synergistic partnership. “We’ve enabled WorldRemit to offer broader, deeper pay-out networks to their customers, and the transactions we assist them to pay out mean we fill ‘white space’ in our network, which in turn helps us to run more efficiently,” said Jury.
Mukuru, is an African FinTech company founded in 2004. The business has nearly 2 million senders, 5m recipients, and has carried out about 45m transactions to date. Jury said some customer segments were exceptionally hard hit during lockdown, presumably because their ability to earn an income was acutely affected.
Jury said there was a large core of transacting customers who turned out to be resilient; sending regular amounts throughout lockdowns and restrictions. “We believe this is the result of the purpose underpinning remittance flows – the need to support families in the country of origin.
