Kenyans Borrow Ksh 1 Billion From M-Pesa Fuliza Service In Just 8 Days.

Kenya’s biggest telecoms operator, Safaricom, got one million users for its new overdraft feature, Fuliza, on the M-Pesa platform in just eight days.

The Fuliza feature, allows M-Pesa users to send money or pay for goods and services even when they don’t have sufficient money in their M-Pesa wallet.

Safaricom rolled out Fuliza in collaboration with the Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) and the Commercial Bank of Africa (CBA).

“For example, if you want to buy goods worth Sh 5,000 but you only have Sh 4,500, you can borrow the bit that you don’t have (Sh500) within the limit that you have, just like an ordinary overdraft,” Collymore said in November 2018 when explaining how Fuliza works.

“If you don’t have enough cash, you simply draw down from the overdraft and you keep drawing down until you have got to your overdraft limit, which is predetermined by an algorithm.”

Under the service, M-Pesa subscribers are able to borrow up to Sh50, 000 which is to be repaid at an interest of 0.5 percent per day.

“We got a million (customers) by day eight and by day eight we had lent $10 million. Now we are probably at $15 million,” says Collymore.

According to the CEO, these figures have surpassed his expectations.

M-Pesa users can access Fuliza by dialing *243# or by using the mySafaricom app.