Between April and the end of September, 7.4 million Kenyans borrowed from Safaricom’s popular overdraft facility, the highest number of users on record.
According to new Safaricom data, the number of unique customers on the service increased by 14.2 percent from 6.4 million at the same time last year.
In comparison, the service had 6.9 million distinct customers in the fiscal year ending March 2022.
Meanwhile, Fuliza loan disbursements grew by 30.1 percent across the six months to Ksh.315.6 billion from Ksh.242.6 billion.
This equates to Ksh.1.7 billion in daily Fuliza loans from a lower daily average of Ksh.1.3 billion in disbursements.
Despite this, the average ticket size of Fuliza loans has dropped by 14.6% to Ksh.320.90 from Ksh.375.80.
Fuliza has continued to obliterate Safaricom’s other lending value products, including KCB M-Pesa and M-Shwari, both of which have seen their loan disbursement values stagnate in recent years.
The value of KCB M-Pesa disbursements, for example, fell by 5.5% to Ksh.21.7 billion in the six months, while credit issuances via M-Shwari remained flat at Ksh.43.4 billion.
Disbursements on Fuliza are expected to increase even more following a 50% reduction in the pricing of the overdraft facility for transactions up to Ksh.1000 for the first three days.
According to company estimates, Safaricom is currently working on a credit repair program with KCB and NCBA, who co-own Fuliza, that will see up to four million Kenyans cleared to access loans on the platform.
