South Sudan mobile money operator launches remittance service

m-Gurush Vice President Joseph Arinaitwe.

South Sudan’s mobile money service, m–Gurush, has launched an international remittance service.

The service was launched by the Governor of the Bank of South Sudan, Jamal Wani Abdalla.

It will enable m-Gurush registered customers to send and receive money from several countries across the globe.

“The service will be particularly beneficial to the South Sudanese living in East Africa who will now be able to receive money using the existing mobile money services such as M-Pesa in Kenya and MTN Mobile Money in Uganda,” said Mr Abdalla during the launch.

“This will further spur socio-economic development in South Sudan and digitally connect the country to her other East African Community counterparts.”

Depending on the recipient’s destination, the customer can either send funds directly to a bank account or to a mobile wallet.

M-Gurush (M for mobile, and Gurush for money in Arabic), was launched last year as a partnership between Zain Telecom and Trinity Technologies to serve the roughly 13 million South Sudanese in the country.

The remittance service is hosted on the Zain network and can also be accesses through the m-Gurush application from the Google Play Store.