Fuliza, the overdraft facility from Kenya’s leading telco Safaricom is one of the most popular digital loans and its ease of access has kept it on the lead. Since its launch in 2019, Fuliza has grown into a highly preferred short-term facility for borrowers.
Reports indicate that Kenyans borrowed an average of Sh1.6 billion ($13.2 million) daily from Fuliza, in the first six months of 2022. In the first six months of 2021 alone, Safaricom earned Sh2.8 billion ($23 million) in revenue from Fuliza borrowings.
The facility is jointly operated by leading commercial banks NCBA and KCB and disbursed through Safaricom’s M-Pesa platform. Fuliza loans now make up 85.54% of digital loans disbursed by NCBA, Kenya’s third-biggest bank by assets.
Until a few weeks ago, Fuliza has had its fair share of shortcomings, primarily on the way borrowers access the facility. The only way one would access the facility was by sending it as digital funds to another Safaricom line or paying for goods and services via Safaricom paybill accounts.
Safaricom has now addressed this challenge and allows customers to withdraw it in cash from Mpesa agents. This is a major twist which unlocks how a borrower uses the facility by giving them these options.
These changes potentially make it a loan product, but Safaricom insists it’s not, arguing that it differs from products like KCB M-PESA and M-Shwari.
It will be interesting to see how these changes affect Fuliza overdraft’s disbursement in the coming quarters. By March 2022, Safaricom reported it had disbursed Sh 502.66 billion worth of Fuliza disbursements, a 43.1% YoY increase with 101.5% repayment versus disbursal rate.
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