Chipper Cash: Ugandans embrace free mobile money transfer

  
An application (App) that allows sending and receiving of money from within and abroad without a charge is a new innovation to the financial space in Uganda.

Chipper Cash, a new financial inclusion can be downloaded from Google PlayStore on Android and iOS app.

The App enables a user to send or receive money from friends and family without a charge at mere tap of a button.

Transferring money across borders has been mainly dominated by Western Union and Moneygram. Western Union is the biggest money transfer provider worldwide and gives you many ways to transfer funds.

However, all these are expensive options, especially in a market used to cheaper Mobile money transactions.

Ed Mugema, the executive director of Chipper Technologies told a news conference in Kampala on Wednesday that the Chipper Cash is currently used in 5 African countries that include: Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ghana and Uganda.

"We want to make the experience of financial transactions seamless and hassle free. That's why we are providing the first ever free money transfer platform for and between African countries," Mugema said.

According to Mugema, Chipper Cash is answer to high charges levied on senders and receivers of money mainly across borders.

"Africans working in Saudi Arabia and European countries were being charged highly in sending money to their relatives back home. We decided to do something about," Mugema said.

Chipper Cash journey

The Chipper Cash journey began in 2017 with two co-founders, Ham Serunjogi a Ugandan and his Ghanaian partner, Maijid Moujaled conceptualized the idea.

Ham was then a business strategist with Facebook and Maijid was working as a software engineer with Yahoo.

They were both passionate about how to enhance the experience of financial transaction in Africa for the everyday user. Chipper then evolved from a small team working from Dublin and San Francisco to teams in Nairobi, where the African headquarters is situated.

Chipper is currently serving over 70,000 users across 5 African countries half of these in Uganda. This is attributed to big young population in Uganda that is keen in embracing new technology.

Magema said they expect to hit a million users by the end of this year adding that the ambitious target is based on the quality of the platform and the consistent faith users have bestowed upon the innovation.

 "We will continue to provide seamless services for moving money for our customers within all of the countries we operate in, as well as across the borders of those countries for users who have families, friends, and business associates," Mugema said.

Chipper Technologies is a group young, energetic and ambitious Africans who are focused on making financial inclusion in Africa a reality. The team is drawn from a pool of former software engineers, engineers, developers, business strategists, and consultants.

How Chipper Cash works
•    Chipper is very easy to use. You can use Chipper to send and receive money to and from anyone in coverage area for free. No charge at all and there is no minimum amount so you can send any amount.
•    To add money to your Chipper wallet, you can "Cash in" by adding money from your mobile money account in to your Chipper wallet.
•    When you try to add cash from your mobile money account, you will receive a prompt on your phone to approve the request.
•    Once you approve this prompt, Chipper will transfer the money from your Mobile Money account to your Chipper wallet.
•    Once the money is in your Chipper wallet, you can send it to anyone at absolutely no charge.