CASE STUDY
REGULATORS CHANGE THEIR REQUIREMENTS FREQUENTLY , WHILE AFRICA HAS A LEVEL OF BOTH POLITICAL AND MARKET VOLATILITY .
applications that allow Mukuru customers to access services , or through which Mukuru staff can support customers , have been built in-house by Mukuru ’ s software engineering team .
The company partners with other platform providers which align to its customer service strategy . These include integrations with WhatsApp , Pattern Matched Technologies , Onfido , Thunes , Xcally , and various Mobile Money Operators , MNO ’ s , among others .
Mukuru builds its technology in a range of coding languages . Flutter is used for customer and staff applications and Web applications , and back-end services are typically built in PHP or . NET Core . Pipeline builds are managed through GitHub . Core staff office applications are managed through Microsoft tools and cloud hosting solutions .
Customers can access Mukuru services primarily through their mobile devices , using WhatsApp , USSD , the Mukuru App or mobile responsive websites .
Customers receive service support through the contact centre .
Mukuru has an extensive agent , branch and booth network to meet customers where they are within their communities . These staff members have access to Apps on their smartphones to facilitate customer transactions .
Product development and innovation
Mukuru ’ s strategic intent to be a financial services platform for Africa ’ s emerging consumer , drives the technical product roadmap . This is aligned to the primary needs of those African consumer to send money , have a digital store of value and spend effectively in their ecosystem through relevant payment use cases
Mukuru moved to a fully cloud hosted architecture in 2015 which has allowed the company to leverage platform development for product launches across 13 African countries . It continues to invest in DevOps cloud infrastructure which supports the multi-service architecture which is being created to support business product expansion .
Long-term business transformation projects at Mukuru include :
• Building and launching wallet products across the business ’ s footprint
• Creating payment options for customers which include airtime , electricity , satellite TV services , and more
Snapshot
• With more than 100 million transactions to date , Mukuru ’ s core was built providing international money transfers .
• The company now operates in more than 60 countries and across more than 500 remittance corridors .
• Mukuru has embraced a hybrid working model for many years .
• Software engineers are employed in Europe , Dubai , Nigeria , Zimbabwe , Kenya and across South Africa .
• Role of Sandy Rheeder is to translate business strategy into an executed product and IT strategy .
• The challenges of building software in-house through permanent software development teams tend to be typical of highperforming teams .
• Mukuru will generally choose to build inhouse , as it allows the company to own its technical architecture .
• Almost all the key applications that allow Mukuru customers to access services , have been built in-house .
• Mukuru ’ s strategic intent to be a financial services platform for Africa ’ s emerging consumer , drives the technical product roadmap .
• Mukuru moved to a fully cloud hosted architecture in 2015 which has allowed the company to leverage platform development for product launches across 13 African countries .
• A key business stakeholder pain point is the speed of software development .
• Customers are at the heart of everything Mukuru does and a key customer pain point is lack of options .
• Customers need technical solutions that are appropriate for their needs .
• The cost of data is also a major challenge for the emerging consumer .
• Navigating technical solutions for Africa ’ s emerging consumers across 13 jurisdictions is challenging .
• Mukuru manages six customer engagement platforms and all of these need to be catered for in a single cloudhosted technology platform .
• The biggest AI use case at Mukuru is in the customer service space .
52 INTELLIGENTCIO AFRICA www . intelligentcio . com