CAPE TOWN - 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.
“Customers were driven to do this, even if it meant making other personal sacrifices,” said Jury.
The remittances services were declared an essential service during the lockdown restrictions to curb the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic.
South Africa moved to level 3 lockdown late in December after the country breached the one million mark of confirmed Covid-19 cases while Zimbabwe went into a hard lockdown as the entire country was declared a coronavirus hotspot as the infection rates drastically surged in all the country’s regions.
“We remain cautiously optimistic we can continue in the year ahead to layer new products and services onto our platform to unlock value and move our customers up along the financial inclusion curve.
“We will also constantly look to build our network and footprint across Africa and beyond, which will allow us to grow our business not only in terms of the breadth of relevant products and services we offer, but in the depth of customer markets we serve,” said Jury.
BUSINESS REPORT