Kenyans borrowed up to Sh19.9 billion worth of airtime through Safaricom's Fuliza overdraft in the four months to March, pointing to a growing reliance on credit facilities amid harsh economic times.
In its latest sustainability report, Safaricom indicated that since opening the lines of credit to enable customers to use the overdraft facility to buy airtime, an additional Sh19.9 billion in the overdraft service turnover had been unlocked as at the close of the fiscal year on March 31 this year.
“We opened lines of credit by enabling customers to use Fuliza to buy airtime via M-Pesa. Since the implementation of the service on 24 November 2022, an additional Sh19.86 billion in additional Fuliza turnover was unlocked,” wrote Safaricom in the report.
Launched in 2019, the Fuliza overdraft service allows M-Pesa users to complete their transactions when they have insufficient funds in their mobile wallets.
Safaricom says that during the year under review, it revised the fees charged on the service by 50 percent in an effort aimed at making credit more affordable, a move that led to a significant increase in transaction volumes, values as well and subscribers.
130m requests
The Fuliza airtime service is an alternative to Safaricom’s airtime overdraft facility Okoa Jahazi which allows users to borrow airtime when running on a low balance.
The two are further complemented by the ‘reverse call’ service that allows callers to transfer the cost of the call to the receiver.
A customer receiving a reverse call request can either accept or reject.
By accepting the request, the receiver is charged for the call at the normal call rates.
In the latest report, Safaricom says the number of reverse calls made almost doubled in the year under review to 130 million, up from 73 million in the previous year.
