In this episode of the Connecting Africa podcast, we speak with Andy Jury, Group CEO of the financial services platform. Mukuruon the fintech landscape in Africa, how Mukuru has followed its strategy of evolution and expansion over the past 20 years, and the opportunities that remain to bring true digital and financial inclusion to Africa.
Founded in 2004, Mukuru’s platform sits at the intersection of formal and informal financial services ecosystems and delivers financial inclusion to more than 16 million people across Africa, Asia and Europe. It has grown and now operates in over 60 countries and over 500 remittance corridors.
“The fintech landscape in Africa is full of opportunities, it probably has more opportunities in front of it today than any other region in the world. But a lot of it comes from the fact that there is just this massive need, a very deep need. addressable market and until now there haven’t been many solutions for potential customers to bridge that gap,” Jury said.
Here are some topics we covered:
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The current state of the fintech ecosystem in Africa and bridging the gap between formal and informal financial services (01:40)
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Mukuru’s evolution over the past 20 years from offering airtime vouchers between the UK and Zimbabwe to point-to-point remittances, to becoming a fully-fledged fintech platform (04 :52)
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The challenges of integrating informal market customers into the digital ecosystem (9:50 a.m.)
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How Mukuru overcame early headwinds with a gradual digitalization strategy and focus on customer trust and logistics (11:30 a.m.)
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The rationale for niche products like funeral coverage and the company’s strategy to expand financial services products in different markets (16:50)
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Why Mukuru decided to add Asian markets to its remittance portfolio (19:50)
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How the company chooses which payment channels to tackle next, based on customer demand and partnership opportunities (24:10)
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The jury’s personal experience moving from a career in consulting and retail to fintech, the challenges they faced and what they love about working in fintech (26:40)
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The evolution of Mukuru’s payment rails over the past ten years and the creation of a modular payment infrastructure (30:40)
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Jury’s advice to startups trying to break into fintech (35:05)
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Financing choices and the importance of bootstrapping for sustainability (38:55)
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The biggest lessons he has learned so far during his journey with Mukuru (42:25)
_(1).jpg?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale "Andy Jury, CEO of Mukuru Group.")
Andy Jury, CEO of Mukuru Group. (Source: Mukuru)
More Connect Africa podcasts
This season we’ll be talking to more startup founders and interesting personalities from the African tech ecosystem, so stay tuned for new episodes coming out soon.
If you want to catch up on everything previous episodes, you can find the podcast on Apple Podcasts; Spotify; Pocket castings or find other podcast platform options on our main page on Spotify for podcasters.
You can also find the podcast hosts online here:
Paula Gilbert – @paulajgilbert
Tobi Lafinhan- @TobiLafinhan
Matshepo Sehloho – @tsokamatshepo
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