Cross-border money transfer and payments app, Chipper Cash, is celebrating its 3rd anniversary this week with amazing offers in stock for you. Founded in 2018 by Ham Serunjogi a Ugandan and Maijid Moujaled a Ghanian, the company offers instant no-fee local person-to-person transfers and the best rates on cross-border money transfers with the instant settlement, discounted airtime purchase, and cryptocurrencies trading.
Over the period, the app which is available on Google Play and App Store has spread its wings and now has close to 4 million users across Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, and the UK. These enjoy a number of exclusive products including cryptocurrencies trading for Bitcoin and Ethereum. Additionally, Ugandan users are now able to receive money directly from the UK, as well as data purchases in the app.
Ordinarily, users get a 2% standard discount on airtime purchases across all networks. However, there is a limited-time promo of a 5% discount until Friday this week. Plus, users are set to enjoy a 20% cashback on all data purchases as part of the anniversary celebrations.
Chipper Cash: A cross-border money transfer champion
Chipper Cash has gone up the ladder strategically within just a few years, seeing an increase in the number of users on the app to 4 million and a sharp rise in transaction volumes. As reported by TechCrunch, the company averaged 80,000 transactions daily in November 2020 and processed $100 million in payments value in June 2020.
Tumuramye Dan, the Chipper Cash Country Manager in Uganda says this has been made easy through the P2P on-net transfers local and cross border within the Chipper Cash ecosystem. This means that far different from the case in the past, you do not need to go through various parties to have your money transferred from one user in one location to another in a different location.
To serve their customers better, the app is launching its virtual Visa enabled cards product in various markets including Uganda. There are plans to roll out an investment product where Chipper Cash users in Uganda will have an option to trade or purchase stocks on the US stock market and other markets to follow upon regulatory approval.
Users should also expect the expansion of the bills payment feature with the addition of utility payments and wider internet data purchases for other telecom subscribers.
Leading the adoption of cryptocurrency in Africa
Crypto is booming in Africa, with users on the continent accounting for big size of global transactions on some global crypto-trading platforms. Particularly, transactions from Nigeria, South Africa, and Kenya account for most of the crypto activity on the continent, and Chipper Cash is active in these countries.
With its trading platform, Chipper Cash is giving its users the power to buy, hold, sell or transfer cryptocurrencies conveniently. All settlements are done on the app, without having to refer to any other party or platform.
“Crypto is one of the key revenue earners for Chipper Cash and we have realized a high early adoption by Ugandan users. Inspired by our customers, we have added on-chain transactions, where we launched a send-and-receive of crypto as a means of exchange,” says Dan.
Basically, if a user has a payment to make to a merchant trading in crypto, they can effectively transfer the payment in the form of crypto. Currently, the app supports trading for Bitcoin and Ethereum with a third currency in the works.
Most valuable startup in Africa
Probably the most significant achievement to date is the $100 million Series C round that Chipper Cash closed last May among other series of successful rounds in the past. This pushed the app to unicorn status and made it Africa’s most valuable startup.
In November 2020, the startup raised $30 million Series B, after closing a $13.8 million Series A round in June 2020. The Series C brought the total funds closed within a year to $143.8 million. Chipper Cash joined five other already established African Unicorns including Flutterwave, OPay, Interswitch, Fawry, and Jumia – overtaking them in the process.
The company is planning an expansion to the US market, making it the 9th on the list and opening its doors to a more active customer base globally.
