Fuliza craze sees Kenyans borrow Sh140 billion in 9 months
By Hilary KimuyuKenyans have in the last nine months borrowed a whopping Sh140 billion from Safaricom’s overdraft service, Fuliza.
Fuliza, the world’s first contextual mobile overdraft facility, allows M-Pesa customers to complete transactions when they have insufficient funds in their account.
While releasing their half year this week, Safaricom said the increased demand for the service worked to support their M-Pesa revenues in the period since the early January launch to rake in Sh1.6 billion in earnings for the telco.
At the same time, the new business saw the continued evolution of Safaricom’s revenue profile as the company’s mobile-money service earnings edged closer to revenues from voice whose contribution depreciated further in the period to 34.7 percent.
Simply put, out of two M-Pesa users, there is a high likelihood that one uses Fuliza.
A customer can use Fuliza to send Money, Pay bills and Buy goods through the Lipa na M-Pesa option.
However, a user cannot withdraw the funds from their account like other Safaricom loan services.