Business Post Contributor
By Sodeinde Temidayo David
A fast-growing African financial technology start-up has officially launched Chipper Cash in South Africa, to offer domestic free peer-to-peer (P2P) money transfers.
With this, Chipper Cash will enable South Africans to enjoy free unlimited instant domestic money transfers, invest in cryptocurrencies, and buy and send airtime and data to loved ones.
Also coming with it, instant cross-border payments can be made from South Africa, joining other African countries such as Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Kenya.
This is coming after the company secured $100 million which was set to enlarge its expansion, as it plans to introduce more products and grow its team.
Founded in 2018 by Mr Messrs Ham Serunjogi and Mr Maijid Moujaled, the Chipper Cash app was created with the aim of making money transfers easy and efficient for Africans.
It also aims to increase access to financial services for the underbanked as well as digitise daily payments to ease the reliance on cash.
Speaking on the expansion, Chipper Vice President of Strategy and Partnerships in Africa, Pardon Mujakachi, noted that domestic remittances are a lifeline for many families in South Africa and Chipper’s mission is to make the process more seamless and cost-effective for them.
With the introduction of Chipper Cash to the South African economy, people can instantly purchase airtime and data from leading South African network providers to send to friends and family.
Following this, a record had proven that as of 2019, South Africa had around 11 million unbanked people.
This left many people seeking alternative options for domestic remittances, which serves as a lifeline to the 24 million South Africans who send money to family and friends daily.
Adding to this, there are also 7.7 million people who moved to other provinces for work, resulting in over R157 billion, an estimated N4 trillion being moved across provinces annually.
Chipper Cash’s speed, very low cost and user-friendliness are set to challenge the high fees, complicated processes, and slow transfer times of traditional money transfer.
This is seen as its interface is intuitive, simple and makes sending money to friends and family as simple and instant as sending a text.
The company is still set to improve the making cross-border money transfers easy and affordable for Africans, as it currently has about 4 million users on its platform and has averaged 80,000 daily transactions with a value of $100 million in payments.
