So how does Mama Money offer their service at 5% whereas Mukuru, arguably the most popular service over the South Africa-Zimbabwe corridor, charges double this? From our experience of testing these two services, we noted a few key differences in how they operate which is likely to drive the cost differential between the two services. These differences include: · Mama Money maintain low overhead costs. Mama Money operate a single branch in Cape Town whereas Mukuru operate at least seven of their own branches nationally and they also operate through the Inter Africa branch network · Mama Money offer limited support beyond registration. In comparison, Mukuru operate a large 24 hour call centre and live chat function that supports and facilitates transfers. These support functions are no doubt very expensive to operate · Mama Money have a single partner organisation in Zimbabwe. Mama Money only have a single partner in Zimbabwe, CABS bank, whereas Mukuru have partnerships with a number of banks, retailers and mobile wallets. That said, if Mama Money’s Facebook comments are anything to go by, they may be adding more partner organisations in Zimbabwe, so this factor may soon be invalidated So while Mama Money’s competitors charge considerably higher fees, in the case of Mukuru, these higher fees are associated with some value-added benefits for the customer, for instance 24hr support on transactions for the sender and, for the recipient, a choice in how to receive the money.

Mukuru is uniquely focused on serving low- and middle-income migrants who typically send money home to their families to cover basic living expenses and who otherwise rely on informal and inconsistent channels such as buses, taxis, friends, and family. Through Mukuru, customers can send money through more reliable channels via bank transfer, cash deposit, credit/debit card or via a Mukuru Money Card and/or mobile money wallet. Friends and family members of these customers can then receive the money through the same methods (cash collection, bank transfer, cash to card, or mobile money wallet).

Yet the pandemic and increasing competition have presented an opportunity for newer, nimble firms such as WorldRemit and Mukuru, who use disruptive online technology through smartphones, and often undercut the prices traditional remittance firms charge customers to send money to the continent. 

WorldRemit also partnered with OPay, a Nigerian financial services technology company, and Mukuru, an Africa-based remittances fintech business operating in over 20 African markets. The deal now means there will be no charges for Mukuru customers on cash collections for transactions with WorldRemit.  

For Mukuru, the weakening of the informal trade has meant growth has accelerated since April, says CEO Andy Jury, although the long-term impact of Covid-19 on labour migration is unknown. 

African remittance provider Mukuru has launched a grocery service that will give foreign national workers living in South Africa, as well as any South Africa-based customer, the ability to send groceries to families and communities in Zimbabwe.

As one of the largest money transfer operators on the continent, the grocery service represents an extension of the company’s existing offering. At a time when many Zimbabweans are struggling to obtain basic commodities, Mukuru Groceries aims to help ensure that families are provided for and given the best chance to remain healthy throughout the crisis period.

“In addition to price fluctuations for basic goods, people also face the uncertainty of whether certain goods will be available - as many Zimbabwean retailers have struggled to replenish stock,” adds Jury. “By enabling South Africa-based workers to pay for a pre-agreed basket of goods for families in Zimbabwe, we are removing these uncertainties and providing families with peace of mind during this immensely tough period.”

By signing up for Mukuru via WhatsApp, users will be able to bypass the onerous task of submitting Know-Your-Customer (KYC) documents to an agent or Mukuru branch in person. Instead, they can submit documents directly to Mukuru’s verifications team. Mukuru will then provide timely feedback via WhatsApp as to whether a prospective customer’s ID documents have been effectively verified or not (and if the customer needs to take further steps). “Our customers already use WhatsApp extensively to create money transfer transactions (comprising more than 30% of our total monthly transaction volume in SA) so we are naturally extending self sign-up services on this channel,” says Jury. “This capability removes key barriers for our customers and increases accessibility to important financial services in South Africa and across our network. By harnessing our technology expertise and ability to innovate around customer pain points, we are boosting financial inclusion by allowing customers to submit their own KYC documents and gain access to higher limits.”

In a statement yesterday Mukuru CEO Andy Jury said the acquisition will extend Mukuru’s African footprint deep into the urban and rural areas cross Malawi. “This acquisition will bring the benefits of our extensive products and cutting-edge technology to the citizens of Malawi – giving them better options and safe mechanisms to send money to loved ones and ultimately uplift their communities,” he said. Following the acquisition, Zoona Malawi’s agents will operate as Mukuru agents benefiting from a wider product range to offer customers backed by Mukuru’s trusted and established brand name. In addition, agents will benefit from being part of the Southern African Development Corporation (SADC) regional network, increasing their regional exposure and potentially boosting earnings over time.

Mukuru, one of the largest international money operators and remittance companies in Africa, has confirmed that it has acquired Zoona’s operational assets in Malawi along with the technology systems that support its Malawian operations.

The pandemic gave remittance companies an advantage over their main competition in Africa: the sprawling informal networks of traders, bus drivers and travellers used by many migrants to send money home.“We’ve seen an influx of new customers, and we see them mainly coming to us from the informal market,” said Andy Jury, chief executive of Mukuru, the company Takawira now uses.Jury and other industry executives say that shift is likely to last as digital remittance services are typically cheaper, faster and safer than informal networks, which are difficult for governments to regulate.Mukuru, which focuses mainly on African remittances and allows customers to send both cash and groceries, has seen a roughly 75% acceleration in growth compared to last year.

Biometrics is another sort of key differentiator in the space for increased security and ease of sign-up. Africa is ready for digitisation, and we have already seen good traction in SA with our Mukuru Card product. Mukuru is investing in technology to support customers as they digitise in the coming years, across our footprint.

Ensuring that the core stability and functional capability brought about by the technologies and coding languages mentioned earlier is of paramount importance. We are relaunching our app and that’s been built on the Flutter framework. The app is important because it allows for content rich customer engagements.It will also enable us to ingest/scan customer documents in real-time, process card payments securely so that customers can create and pay for orders in one step as opposed to two, as well as allowing for a host of additional customer facing services and capabilities to be deployed.The core DNA of our business is making sure that it’s super simple and that somebody with a feature phone is not precluded from using the service, because that is the essence of where our customer base is at, so we want modular technological capabilities that we can use in any conditions.

As a result of the company's deepened collaboration, customers will benefit from guaranteed cash at all times, and there will be no cash-out charges to recipients on cash collections. Until now, customers who received payments into mobile wallets in partnership countries like Zambia would ordinarily pay a cash-out fee when withdrawing cash from a mobile wallet. Now, when a WorldRemit customer sends cash to a recipient in Zambia, and that recipient collects their transfer at a Mukuru booth, the recipient will pay no fee at all.

Given the fact that the startup did well in 2017 by guiding the Ghanaian small-scale farmers to a larger market, it now wants to expand further to Nigeria. At the same time, the startup is planning to launch piloting program in Ghana within 2018. According to AgroCenta CEO and co-founder Francis Obirikorang, the startup will have an initial 100,000 smallholder farmers in Nigeria. The farmers will be connected to almost six, small, medium and large-scale market to sell directly.

The start-up provides access to truck delivery services and real-time market information via SMS and IVR. Building on this platform, AgroCenta now enables farmers to receive mobile money, build their credit score and access financial services (like crop insurance) through its latest mobile product, AgroPay.

In a country where agriculture is the primary economic occupation of many — employing 52 per cent of Ghana’s labour force — the AgriTech start-up launched AgroTrade, an online platform that connects smallholder farmers in the staple food value chain to a wider online market.

In Ghana, AgroCenta has set up a mobile money API integration partnership with MTN and Vodafone to pay smallholder farmers directly and seamlessly via mobile money through its AgroPay platform.

Does being an entrepreneur in Ghana – and in a developing economy in Africa – presents any ulterior challenges you had overcome?Being an entrepreneur in Africa and in emerging markets, in general, is quite difficult because of the lack of structure and supports put in place by the government. It requires a lot of courage and persistence to get the simplest things done. Any simple tech solution that you might want to build can end up being a very complex challenge because it relies on services that do not exist or don’t work properly. Access to funding also remains a big problem for many entrepreneurs who will need money to test, pilot and scale a platform or a solution. Many investors are quite held back when it comes to making investments in Africa for an obvious reason: corruption.

Our business model is simple, we are a B2B business that generates commission fees on trade volumes from the businesses we work with.

AgroCenta came about when both co-founders identified the missing gap in the post harvest value chain, that is access to market for smallholder farmers. This gap gave way to exploitative buying from middlemen at the disadvantage to the smallholder farmer.

AgroCenta’s core services are AgroTrade : Which is a sales platform that connects smallholder farmer directly to a larger market to trade fairly. AgroTrade matches smallholder farmers in rural areas to small, medium and large buyers in the urban areas. TrucKR : TruckR is the on-demand trucks & logistics aspect of AgroCenta where farmers can book for truck delivery services to cart their commodities from farms to markets just at a click of a button AgroInfo : Real time weather, market prices and extension advisory services are delivered via SMS and voice solutions to smallholder farmers using mobile technologies AgroPay : AgroPay is the financial inclusion platform for smallholder farmers where farmers in rural areas, without bank accounts, receive payments for goods and services via mobile money technologies.

In 2018, Agrocenta won the Seedstars World competition — an early-stage startup pitching competition –, receiving $500k in equity funding. By December of the same year, the company closed a seed round of equity and non-equity funding to scale its operations. 

Ghanaian Agritech startup, Agrocenta has raised $790,000 pre-series A funding. The investors that took part in the round include Shell Foundation, FCDO, AV Ventures and Rabo Foundation.

The latest funding takes Agrocenta’s total disclosed funding to $1.9 million.