Safaricom may soon expand its overdraft facility to business applications.
When Fuliza started, a lot of people never saw a day when they could purchase an item without actually having the money to do it. Fuliza is an immediate process for those who have a deficit on their M-Pesa and since it’s been doing so well the business will not only be limited to people who use it to send cash and pay bills but also for businesses.
Recently, Fuliza also made it possible to buy airtime as opposed to using Okoa Jahazi, previously Safaricom customers would have to use pay bill numbers to buy airtime from their Fuliza balances.
Fuliza making great progress.
As other big companies suffer from losses due to the fact that people fail to pay their loans, Safaricom has greatly benefited from Fuliza, it’s officially their cash cow.
Many Kenyans not only rely on Fuliza as an emergency loan but literally use it for their day to day expenses, currently the business has more than 1.7 million users daily. The company disbursed KES 242 billion in the first half of the 2021/2022 FY and it made 2.8 billion over the same period.
When will it happen?
The new move has not yet been confirmed as it’s still in review as they had to apply to regulators before launching the service to business owners.
This may mean that businesses will have access to Fuliza which could be a good or a bad thing depending on the business management approach that the business will use. If not careful, businesses could end up in a cycle of debt especially since there are more than 400,000 businesses that use Lipa Na M-PESA service.