Safaricom announced the introduction of Fuliza, an M-Pesa overdraft facility for its customers, at the announcement of their half year results.
Fuliza will enable M-Pesa customers to be able to access funds to pay bills or buy goods and services. The new service is in partnership with Commercial Bank of Africa (CBA).
Here is how it works.
1. Signing up
You can sign up by going to the MySafaricom app and opting in under the Fuliza tab in M-Pesa. You can also sign up via USSD by dialing *243# .
Additionally, you must be 18 years old and above and have been a M-Pesa customer for 6 months.
2. Overdraft
Once you sign up for the service, you will receive a confirmation message that has the overdraft limit. If the confirmation message does not have a limit then you may need to transact a bit before you can get an overdraft facility.
3. Charges
The charges for the overdraft are a 1% access fee and a maintenance fee on the outstanding balance as per the table below. This means that the sooner you pay for it the better if you don’t want to pay expensive charges.
| Amount | Charges |
| 0 -100 | One-time fee of Ksh 2 |
| 101-500 | Ksh 5 per day |
| 501-1000 | Ksh 10 per day |
| 1001-1500 | Ksh 20 per day |
| 1501-2500 | Ksh 25 per day |
| 2501-70000 | Ksh 30 per day |
4. Repayment
Once you receive an overdraft, you have to pay it within 90 days or you will be in default. When you sign up, you give Safaricom the power to recover the overdraft plus any accrued fees from your M-Pesa account until such a time it is fully paid. .