South African FinTech Mama Money, which offers affordable cross-border money transfers across Africa, has introduced a groundbreaking Fica registration process using photos and its app.
"To register, you simply download the Mama Money Family App from the Google Play store, enter you contact details, take a photo of your passport or ID and a selfie holding the document. This is all that's needed to register to begin sending money home. The whole process takes less than three minutes," comments Raphael Grojnowski, Mama Money co-founder.
"Financial services in South Africa are very difficult to access for migrants who are earning money from informal jobs. We help them to send money back to their families easily and affordably. Our new registration process eliminates requesting documentation that they don't have. It offers the option to self-register via the app. This is in addition to the current options to register in person at a PEP store, or with a Mama Money agent."
Grojnowski says that this new addition is also more convenient for higher income foreign nationals living in SA and employers of foreigners who can now register their employees online.
Since Mama Money was launched in March 2015 to allow cross border payments from South Africa to Zimbabwe, it has expanded to include Nigeria, Malawi, Kenya, Ghana, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Uganda and India. Mama Money's low rate of 5% with no margin charged on the exchange rate has remained the same since inception. It is far below the costs of other African and international money transfer companies.
"We have seen tremendous growth in all the corridors. Our business has tripled in size since March this year and we now have 100 000 customers. This growth can be attributed to our agent network and educating migrants about safely sending money they earn in SA back home. We currently employ 783 agents and expect to have 1 000 agents by the end of the year," says Grojnowski.