Kenyan Businesses Fuliza Over KSh 6 Billion In 2 Months

• Safaricom PLC launched Fuliza Ya Biashara in May 2023 to allow business owners to complete their transactions when they have insufficient funds
• KCB Bank Kenya reported that businesses overdrew over KSh 6 billion on their M-Pesa Till numbers in two months, ending June 30, 2023
• Fuliza products, personal and business, grew the value of mobile loans issued by the lender to KSh 154.3 billion

Kenyan businesses overdrew over KSh 6 billion on M-Pesa tills in two months to June 30, 2023, KCB Bank has reported.

This followed the launch of the Fuliza Ya Biashara product by Safaricom PLC in May 2023, allowing small businesses to complete transactions in cases of insufficient funds.

Safaricom partnered with the lender to roll out the product that allows overdrafts of between KSh 1,000 and KSh 400,000.

KCB half-year financial results showed that Fuliza ya Biashara grew to KSh 6.2 billion in the period under review.

The Fuliza products - personal and business - increased the lender's value of mobile loans by 91% to KSh 154.3 billion.

"Our widely accessible mobile financing solutions augment our efforts to support households and small businesses to bounce back stronger," KCB noted.

Fuliza ya Biashara is offered an interest-free period of 24 hours, after which a 2% access fee is charged to customers for up to 29 days.

This saw the lender record a 12% growth in profit for the same year under review.

Fuliza personal loan

Fuliza personal loan grew by 107% year on year to hit KSh 98.2 billion during the same period under review.

Fuliza recorded daily growth of KSh 1.4 billion for the period between April 2021 to March 2022.

The M-Pesa overdraft hit a new high of KSh 502.6 billion in the same period compared to KSh 351.2 billion recorded in the previous year.

The subscribers increased to 6.9 million from 5.9 million borrowers reported in March 2021.

Most Kenyans rely on the Safaricom M-Pesa overdraft service to make ends meet. The use of the service has been growing steadily since it was launched in 2019.