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Connecting Africa Podcast: S3 Ep. 7 – The fintech formula
On this episode, we speak to Andy Jury, Group CEO of Mukuru, about the fintech landscape in Africa, Mukuru's evolution and expansion over the past 20 years, and opportunities to bring digital and financial inclusion to Africa.
46 Min Listen
On this episode of the Connecting Africa Podcast, we speak to Andy Jury, Group CEO of financial services platform Mukuru, about the fintech landscape in Africa, how Mukuru has navigated its evolution and expansion strategy 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 the formal and informal financial services ecosystems and provides financial inclusion to over 16 million people across Africa, Asia and Europe. It has grown to now operate in over 60 countries and across more than 500 remittance corridors.
"The fintech landscape in Africa is ripe with opportunity, it has probably got more opportunity in front of it today than any other region in the world. But a lot of that stems from the fact that there is just this massive need, a very deep addressable market and heretofore there have not been very many solutions that enable potential customers to bridge that gap," Jury said.
Here are a few topics we covered:
The current state of the fintech ecosystem in Africa and bridging the divide between formal and informal financial services (01:40)
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)
The challenges of bringing informal market customers into the digital ecosystem (9:50)
How Mukuru overcame headwinds in the early days through a strategy of incremental digitization and by focusing on customer trust and logistics (11:30)
The rationale behind niche products like funeral cover and the company's strategy for expanding financial services products in different markets (16:50)
Why Mukuru decided to add Asian markets to its remittance portfolio (19:50)
How the company chooses which payment corridors to tackle next, drawing on customer demand and partnership opportunities (24:10)
Jury's personal experience moving from a career in consulting and retail into fintech, the challenges he has faced and what he loves about working in fintech (26:40)
The evolution of Mukuru's payment rails over the last ten years and creating modular payment infrastructure (30:40)
Jury's advice to startups trying to break into fintech (35:05)
Funding choices and the importance of bootstrapping for sustainability (38:55)
The biggest lessons he has learned in his journey with Mukuru so far (42:25)
_(1).jpg?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale "Mukuru Group CEO Andy Jury.")
Mukuru Group CEO Andy Jury. (Source: Mukuru)
More Connecting Africa Podcasts
This season we will be speaking to more startup founders and interesting personalities in Africa's tech ecosystem, so stay tuned for new episodes dropping soon.
If you want to catch up on all previous episodes, you can find the podcast on Apple Podcasts; Spotify; Pocket Casts 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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