Airtel Kenya plans to roll out a digital overdraft service as it eyes a share of the short-term mobile loans market, which rival Safaricom dominates with its Fuliza feature.
Safaricom is currently the only telco with the service locally, and Airtel plans to challenge it with a similar offering on Airtel Money. Kenya’s second-largest network carrier has hinted at cheaper interest rates for the offer.
“We are currently in advanced stages with various stakeholders in regard to approvals,” an Airtel spokesperson told the Business Daily via email. The company has said it plans to launch the product early this year.
Overdrafts enable a network’s customers to complete mobile money deals even when they have insufficient funds in their wallets, provided they are within their assigned limit, set by their activity and history.
Fuliza was launched in 2019 as an optional service to cover the shortfall for services like person-to-person cash transfer, withdrawal at M-Pesa agents, making payments, or purchasing airtime, SMS and data packages.
Funds later received in one’s M-Pesa are then automatically used to repay the outstanding Fuliza amount with interest and fees. Safaricom charges a one-off one percent access fee and a daily maintenance fee from Sh5 for loans between Sh101 and Sh500, up to Sh30 for amounts between Sh2,501 and Sh70,000.
Last month, Airtel Money Managing Director Anne Kinuthia-Otieno decried what she called “very high” charges in Kenya’s mobile money market.
“They need to be brought down to create affordability because what we are offering to Kenyans is financial inclusion,” she said in an interview with KBC.
Safaricom runs Fuliza in partnership with NCBA Bank Kenya and KCB Bank Kenya as underwriters. Airtel declined to comment on lenders it is engaging for the same.
Digital overdraft has been gaining pace with increased adoption of mobile money services. Fuliza, for instance, recorded a 22.2 percent increase in active users to 9.1 million in the six months to September 2025, from 7.5 million a year earlier.
Kenyans borrowed a total of Sh629.2 billion through Fuliza in the review period, a 39.8 percent increase from Sh450 billion the year before.
Safaricom reported a 7.8 percent increase in the average Fuliza loan size, from Sh236.20 to Sh254.60. The short-term digital credit service powered M-Pesa revenue to rise 14 percent to Sh88.1 billion, nearly half of the company’s Sh199.9 billion revenue.
However, the majority of Safaricom’s customers have not opted into the service, as the figures represent 17.8 percent of the telco’s 51.12 million 90-day total active customers.
Industry data from the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) shows that as of September 2025, mobile money subscriptions stood at 48.6 million, or a penetration rate of 92.8 percent compared to 91.0 percent reported in June 2025.
Safaricom controlled 89.7 percent of the country’s mobile money market with M-Pesa, while Airtel Money had a 10.3 percent share. Telkom’s T-Kash has a share of less than 0.1.
At the same time, Safaricom has been banking on the M-Pesa-linked savings and lending platform, M-Shwari, to grow uptake and use of the mobile money platform which has diversified into many areas including investments.
M-Shwari’s monthly active users rose 17.6 percent to 7.9 million in September 2025, up from 6.7 million in 2024.
Airtel has not ruled out introducing a similar feature to Airtel Money as part of the planned expansion. “We are always innovating to meet the needs of our customers… they should remain on the lookout for more solutions from us,” the spokesperson said.
