January 2019: Mukuru announced that they are one of the first money transfer companies in South Africa to allow customers to use WhatsApp to initiate transactions.
As a leading money transfer service in Southern Africa, Mukuru strives to be the most convenient, safe and reliable option for financially underserved customers living away from home to help them support their families and realise their dreams. The WhatsApp Business API integration adds immensely to the world class service Mukuru provides to customers.
“We have integrated with the WhatsApp Business API to allow our customers to both create money transfer orders as well as managingtheir account details” says Oliver O’Brien, Head of Strategy and Business Development at Mukuru.
He added, “It has taken a few months, and being one of the first to market, the overall process of integration has been relatively smooth sailing.”
One of the many benefits is that the technology can work anywhere. Mukuru customers can be in any country in which the company operates and still interact with Mukuru via WhatsApp.
The service is multilingual and has been translated into French, Shona, Ndebele, Chewa, Sesotho, and Portuguese. Customers can easily request to chat with an agent in their home language.
Mukuru prides itself in ensuring the safety of their customertransactions. WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption applies to all interactions, which means that even WhatsApp cannot see the contents of a user’s messages to Mukuru.
“The introduction of WhatsApp will not replace our existing methods of sending money, rather this is a new and innovative use of existing technology that helps to replace inefficiencies of the old (SMS/USSD).”said O’Brien.
Adding to Mukuru’s long list of industry firsts, the addition of the WhatsApp Business Solution simply allows the company to provide an even more convenient, safe and reliable service to their customers.
