The African fintech company is supporting its physical growth with the digitisation of key offerings.
Mukuru, Africa’s leading remittance and money transfer provider, is extending its physical presence and agent network across Southern Africa. The African fintech company’s highly successful deployment of orange booths in the region underscores the true scalability of the Mukuru payments platform, which in turn, is being supported by the digitisation of key Mukuru functionalities. Despite the economic and political hardships in the region, which have been deepened by the global pandemic, Mukuru remittance flows across African borders have remained remarkably resilient in recent months – highlighting not only the growing trust in both physical and digital money transfers, but also the lifeline that remittances are providing to many families and communities at this time.
“As we grow our physical footprint in Southern Africa and bring our services to more people by way of booths and an entrepreneurial agent network, this growth is being complemented by the progressive digitisation of key steps in the Mukuru payments process,” explains Andy Jury, CEO, Mukuru. “With more and more digital access points over USSD, WhatsApp and the Mukuru App, for instance, customers are becoming increasingly comfortable with things like self-sign up, including digital KYC and onboarding, which is not only raising our brand presence, but is shifting customers that much closer to financial inclusion and higher levels of financial transaction sophistication.”
For instance, since the early days of the global pandemic and social restrictions in South Africa, almost half of Mukuru’s new SA sign-ups have come via digital self-sign up – indicating the appetite and need for such a capability.
African DNA, homegrown solutions
As a homegrown African fintech provider, Mukuru has underpinned its successful customer engagement strategy with the ability to ‘speak the language’ of its users, so to speak, and gain a grassroots understanding of the unique pain points that customers face in each market. Notably, customers are always able to talk to a Mukuru agent about any challenges or difficulties with the platform, whether it be a Mukuru agent in a booth, in a branch, over the telephone or via a virtual live chat function (in a language of the customer’s choosing, and often in their mother tongue).
“There is a balance that has to be achieved as a fintech provider that is both ‘high tech’ and ‘high touch’, particularly because Mukuru has been built on top of a homegrown African DNA that has always taken its cue from what customers are asking of us at any given moment,” says Jury. “In this way, by constantly gaining customer feedback and participation, we have been able to build a highly robust and resilient financial payments infrastructure across Southern Africa – with our physical presence now unlocking new value in the digital sphere and providing important, value-added services to our loyal customers.”
Testament to this impact, Mukuru has seen a 20-fold increase in monthly transactions within Zimbabwe over the past few months, for instance, as well as impressive year-on-year financial growth despite the global economic volatility. This growth has been cemented by dynamic regional partnerships, and strengthening relationships with regulators, major banks and other remittance and money transfer providers.
“Our partnerships continue to be a source of both innovation and steady growth in the region, with our homegrown technology solutions continually evolving to meet the day-to-day needs of our customers,” adds Jury. “We meet customers wherever they are, which today includes a variety of both physical and digital touchpoints.”
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