Safaricom launches Sharia-compliant money market fund on M-Pesa
Safaricom has launched a Sharia-compliant money market fund on M-Pesa. The move is a bid to pull more Muslim and ethical investors into its fast-growing mobile investment business.
The fund, Ziidi Shari’ah, is run with Gulfcap Investment Bank (GCIB). Customers can start investing with as little as Sh100 and top up from Sh10 after that.
Investors can reach it through the My OneApp or by dialling *334#. They can track daily returns, deposit for free and withdraw to their M-Pesa wallets at no cost.
The product goes after a group the telco’s conventional Ziidi fund doesn’t serve: savers who stay away from interest-bearing products for religious or ethical reasons.
“Part of driving financial inclusion is about making financial services relevant to the different needs and circumstances of our customers,” said Safaricom chief executive Peter Ndegwa.
“With Ziidi Shari’ah, we are making investing simple, affordable and accessible, while providing an option that aligns with the values that guide our customers’ lives.”
The Capital Markets Authority (CMA) regulates the fund. GCIB’s Sharia Supervisory Board makes sure it follows Islamic finance principles. It runs separately from Safaricom’s conventional Ziidi Money Market Fund.
GCIB chief executive Saud Shahbal said the fund puts money only into short-term, highly liquid instruments held with Sharia-compliant banks.
“This preserves capital and daily liquidity, while ensuring returns are free of interest (riba) and are earned only from ethical, permissible activities,” Mr Shahbal said.
He added that putting the product on M-Pesa gives Muslims and other ethical investors a way to grow their savings in line with their values.
The launch builds on the conventional Ziidi fund, which went live in January 2025 with Standard Investment Bank and ALA Capital as fund managers.
Assets in the fund more than doubled to Sh18.7 billion in the year to March 2026. Its fast take-up has made it one of the largest retail investment products in the country by customer numbers. By September 2025, it had 1.15 million customers, nearly half of Kenya’s unit trust investors.
Ziidi Shari’ah has no maximum investment limit, but M-Pesa limits still apply. These are a daily cap of Sh500,000 and a cap of Sh250,000 per transaction.
Customers can also lock their funds for a set period. Safaricom says this is meant to encourage disciplined saving and cut down on unplanned withdrawals.
The new fund is part of Safaricom’s push to turn M-Pesa from a payments and transfers platform into a full financial services ecosystem covering savings, credit and investments.
M-Pesa serves 41 million customers. It earned Safaricom Sh182.7 billion in revenue in the year to March 2026, making it the telco’s biggest growth engine.
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