A man holds a mobile phone with M-Pesa message displayed on screen in Nairobi on January 9, 2024.
Loans disbursed on Safaricom’s mobile-money overdraft facility crossed the Sh1 trillion mark for the first time in the year ended March 2026, as borrowers increasingly seek survival loans for basic items such as food, rent and medicine.
The telecoms operator reported that the value of disbursements on the service, which allows M-Pesa customers to complete transactions even when they do not have sufficient funds in their mobile-money wallets, had hit Sh1.46 trillion, jumping by 49.3 per cent from Sh981.6 billion in the year to March 2025.
It reckons that increased customer access limits helped drive the mobile phone overdraft loans.
Fuliza is offered in partnership with NCBA Bank Kenya and KCB Bank Kenya, which take on the credit risk.
The rise in Fuliza loans is largely attributable to an increased number of users, which includes businesses, and enhanced customer limits that were boosted as recently as January 2026.
The high uptake of Fuliza presents a tale of two sides of the coin, where on one end, consumers, chasing convenience, have tapped the overdraft facility instead of physically topping up their mobile-money wallets or transferring funds across accounts to meet payments.
For such borrowers, Fuliza serves as a fix for short-term cash flow challenges or hiccups.
On the flip side, however, the high usage of Fuliza, where disbursements for the period were equivalent to eight per cent of the 2025 GDP, presents a growing trend of borrowers increasingly turning to survival loans to meet pressing needs such as food and rent.
Reduced economic activity, slower salary increases and rising inflation have forced workers to seek short-term loans like Fuliza for survival.
Last year, real wages, which are adjusted for inflation, rose marginally to Sh56,566 from Sh55,450 in 2024.
However, earnings are still lower than in 2020, when they stood at Sh62,256.
This means workers’ earnings have suffered an erosion of Sh5,690 compared to six years ago.
In early 2024, the banking industry observed a reduced appetite for capital expenditure loans such as construction and business expansion, and an increase in borrowing for short-term needs.
Fuliza, however, has a low rate of loan delinquencies, which indicates a moderate level of debt distress among borrowers.
“There has been less borrowing for capital expenditure. We are seeing more borrowing just for survival. People are borrowing to spend on short-term needs as opposed to long-term investments,” said John Gachora, managing director of NCBA Group.
Fuliza reached 17.7 million distinct customers in the year to March 2026, more than double the 7.9 million previously recorded.
The average loan ticket size, however, fell to Sh217.90 from Sh241.20.
The Safaricom head office in Nairobi.
Safaricom earned Sh6 billion in revenue from Fuliza disbursements, representing a 46 per cent increase from Sh4.1 billion previously.
A customer is charged a one-off one per cent access fee, while a daily maintenance fee is applied the next day at midnight.
Total charges range from Sh3 for borrowings between Sh101 and Sh500 to Sh30 for borrowings between Sh2,501 and Sh70,000, including a 20 per cent excise duty applied on the tariff.
Borrowers have seen increased loan limits on the service by continuing to use Safaricom and M-Pesa services, including topping up their mobile-money wallets to meet repayments.
The telecoms operator previously credited enhanced limits for increased usage.
“We enhanced our credit limits as part of our response to customer needs. This drove higher utilisation, with volumes and values increasing,” Safaricom said in its 2025 annual report.
“This is an area with great potential for growth as we work together with our partners to meet the needs of our customers.”
Over one million Safaricom customers saw their limits enhanced as the firm began using artificial intelligence (AI) for credit and behavioural scoring.
In 2023, Safaricom launched Fuliza ya Biashara in partnership with KCB Bank Kenya to enable business owners to access the mobile overdraft service.
“Our strategy is to go beyond collecting payments by providing business owners with tools to manage and grow their businesses. Fuliza ya Biashara caters especially to small businesses by providing instant, affordable credit of up to Sh400,000, empowering them to respond quickly to their business needs,” said Peter Ndegwa, Safaricom Plc chief executive officer.
Safaricom earns a proportion of the fee charged based on a pre-determined revenue share matrix, which has not been publicly disclosed.
Repayments on Fuliza have remained healthy, with the repayment-to-disbursement ratio unchanged at 101.5 per cent over the last year.
Safaricom also supports additional lending through KCB M-Pesa, M-Shwari and Timiza, although their combined disbursements remain relatively modest compared to Fuliza at Sh73.8 billion, Sh95.1 billion and Sh28.5 billion respectively.
Lending remains a core financial service in the M-Pesa ecosystem, but Safaricom has diversified into savings, investments and insurance through platforms such as Ziidi Money Market Fund and Ziidi Trader.
Its insurance service also covers 4G/5G device financing under the Lipa Mdogo Mdogo scheme.
Active customers on the Ziidi MMF rose more than two-fold to 2.2 million, while assets under management also doubled to Sh21 billion, generating Safaricom Sh140 million in revenue.
The operator also oversaw the issuance of 94,400 policies under the Lipa Mdogo Mdogo device financing programme.
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