The Smart Franchise Solution

With a successful track record of more than 25 years of operation in Southern Africa, and over 30 years globally, the CASH CONVERTERS franchise continues to provide entrepreneurially minded people with the infrastructure and support to become financially independent and thriving business owners.

The Cash Converters success story starts with Brian Cumins, who in 1984 in Perth, Western Australia, saw an opportunity to package pawn-broking and secondhand retailing services into a mainstream, professional operation that has since evolved into a globally successful franchise operation. As Richard Mukheibir, CEO of Cash Converters Southern Africa explains, “Our group founder, Brian Cumins, describes it as taking the sector out of the steam-driven era and propelling it into the supersonic age.”

Fast forward to 1994 when Mukheibir and his business partner Peter Forshaw (current Chief Financial Officer) established the Southern African wing of the brand. It was a time of tremendous change in the country; Nelson Mandela, having been released from prison in 1990, won the landmark democratic election of April 1994 and swore in a new post-apartheid era. “It was a time of post-isolation optimism that matched my entrepreneurial desire to build my own venture,” Mukheibir elaborates.

Today, the company has over 90 franchise-operated stores across Southern Africa, with ambitions to grow to 130 stores in the next 18 months. Collectively, Cash Converters’ franchisees employ nearly 1,500 employees, and by the end of 2019, they will have processed around three million transactions across its retail, pawn-broking and micro-finance business units.

Progressive business model

Cash Converters’ unique three-in-one business model (buying and selling pre-loved goods, secured and unsecured money-lending) creates three times the opportunity to generate sustainable profit. In fact, the three different businesses under one roof create a recession-resistant opportunity.