Kenyan telecommunication company, Safaricom, have announced that they will reduce daily maintenance fees by up to 40% on their M-PESA overdraft service, Fuliza. The access fee will however remains at 1%.
The overdraft service was launch by Safaricom in 2019 and is underwritten by NCBA Group and KCB Group. Fuliza enables M-PESA customers to complete your M-PESA transactions when they have insufficient funds in their M-PESA account. They can access funds multiple times as long as they are within their Fuliza limit.
The discounted tariff will take effect from October 1, 2022. All Fuliza customers who have a positive limit and with no outstanding balance will benefit from the new tariff. Additionally, customers that receive loans of Ksh. 1,000 and below shall enjoy a waiver on daily maintenance fees for the first 3 days.
Fuliza loans of betwen Ksh. 101 to Ksh. 500 will attract a daily fee of Ksh. 2.50, down from Ksh. 5. Whereas Fuliza loans of between Ksh. 501 Ksh. 1,000 will now be charged a daily fee of Ksh. 6, down from a previous fee of Ksh. 10.
Larger amounts however, will still attract higher charges. Fuliza loans between Ksh. 1,501 to Ksh. 2,500 will be charged a daily rate Ksh. 20, down from Ksh. 25.
Loans disbursed by Fuliza were at Ksh. 288 billion in the first half of the year. This is up from Ksh. 220.38 billion in the same period last year and Ksh. 176 billion in 2020. The loan service made history when it acquired over 1 million customers and gave out over Ksh. 1 Billion in loans in just 8 days.
New Fuliza charges effective October 1 2022
| Tariff Band | Old Daily Maintenance Fee (Ksh.) | New Daily Maintenance Fee (Ksh.) |
| 1 – 100 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 101 – 500 | 5.00 | Free for first 3 days
2.50 after |
| 501 – 1,000 | 10.00 | Free for first 3 days
5.00 after |
| 1,001 – 1500 | 20.00 | 18.00 |
| 1,501 – 2,500 | 25.00 | 20.00 |
| 2,501 – 70,000 | 30.00 | 25.00 |