Mukuru (https://www.Mukuru.com) recently launched a first-of-its-kind drive-thru service in Chisipite, Harare, to enhance its promise of making financial services more accessible to people in Zimbabwe. The Chisipite Drive-Thru is one of the fintech’s new locations in Zimbabwe, along with nine other sites for domestic and international money transfers launched across the region in February.
According to the World bank, “remittances to Sub-Saharan Africa…grew an estimated 5.2% to $53 billion in 2022, compared with 16.4% last year.” The slowdown in the growth rate of remittance flows into the region is attributed to persistent “adverse conditions in the global environment and regional source countries.”
“Whilst we are realistic about the economic outlook, as a leading Southern African financial services business, we strive to enable financial inclusion for Africa’s emerging market. This is why we continuously shift our focus to innovative ways that make financial services more accessible for the people of Zimbabwe and those in the diaspora,” says Marc Carrie-Wilson, Zimbabwe Director.
“As we increase our footprint in the country, we explored various innovative ideas to push the envelope and challenge the type of locations that we have as a financial services company. Safety remains a top priority for us, and the drive-thru idea proved to be the safest and most convenient option for our customers. The Chisipite Drive-Thru is open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily (including public holidays) and comes with a “walk-in” option for customers who wish to register or visit the location on foot.
“Out of the ten new locations, Chisipite is the only Drive-Thru at the moment, but we hope to launch one in Bulawayo in the next phase,” says Carrie-Wilson.
As part of its innovation, Mukuru has launched a series of services in the past few months to build a diverse product offering for customers, which include partnerships with Multichoice (to make paying for DStv more convenient) and Bereka to deliver money transfers directly to customers across Zimbabwe.
“We have seen how well these collaborations work in our ongoing partnership with wholesaler Metro Peech & Browne, who make purchasing groceries, stationery, and appliances more convenient for people in Zimbabwe who use our platform,” concludes Carrie-Wilson.
About Mukuru:
Mukuru is a leading Next Gen Financial Services Platform in Southern Africa that offers affordable and reliable financial services to a customer base of over 13 million across Africa, Asia, and Europe.
With over 100 million transactions to date, our core was built to provide international money transfers and from this base, we’ve developed a set of services to address the broader financial needs of our customers. We now operate in over 50 countries and across over 300 remittance corridors.
We are a business that puts the customer at the center of everything we do, and for that reason, we serve clients across physical and digital channels, by various payment methods (cash, card, wallet) as well as a range of engagement platforms including WhatsApp, USSD, contact center, App, website, agents and a branch and booth network.
Mukuru has been listed as one of the top 100 Cross Border Payments businesses in the world in the 2022 FXC Intelligence Top 100 Cross-Border Payment Companies.
Mukuru won two awards in 2021:
- In July 2021, Mukuru also took the top honors for Most Innovative Financial Services Provider South Africa 2021 at the World Economic Magazine Award Winners 2021 as well as at the International Business Magazine Award 2021
- In April 2021, Mukuru took the top honors for Most Innovative Online Remittance App – South Africa, 2021 at the Global Brand Awards 2021
