Mukuru enables international money transfers
An instant transfer product that moves money between South Africa and the UK in both directions, and from South Africa to any European Union country has recently been launched.
Developed by financial services platform Mukuru, the system uses WhatsApp and the company’s dedicated app to perform transactions.
The fintech company, which operates in more than 50 countries with over 300 remittance corridors and more than 14-million users, says the product was developed as a result of demand from Southern African ex-patriots living in the UK.
Mukuru CEO Andy Jury says the business set out to build a solution that was fast and simple to use. “The key point of differentiation is that it genuinely is almost immediate. There’s no money lingering in the complicated payment ecosystem for 48 or 72 hours. Excluding the competitive fees, you could send money to a UK bank account and then back to South Africa in less than a minute,” he says.
Jury explains that the solution is designed for transferring so-called discretionary allowance funds.
“Our existing customers already use WhatsApp and so being able to transfer money internationally using WhatsApp is an important characteristic of the solution. In addition to this, using the Mukuru app for these transfers offers mobile and on-the-move users a host of benefits, such as ease of use, as well as virtual verifications within the app,” he notes.
Mukuru highlights its competitive fee structure, compared to major banks or fintech companies but says the main benefit of the product is that it enables instant bi-directional transfers into a UK bank account if transferring from South Africa, and into a Mukuru wallet or local bank account in South Africa.