Kenya's Fuliza Cash Disbursement Amount Hit Ksh.288B
The first half of Kenya's Fuliza cash expenditure has reached Ksh. 288 billion, up from Ksh. 220.38 billion during the same period in 2021, according to reports that have been made. This also reveals that most Kenyans depend on short-term mobile loans to meet their daily needs.
Leah Mukangai 
The fact that Kenyans are using Fuliza payments more frequently than M-shwari payments is mostly due to the country's rising cost of living. Inflation, a measure of the cost of living, increased to a 61-month high of 8.3 percent in July from 7.9 percent in June due to rising food and fuel prices.
Since 2020, when the Covid-19 outbreak hit the economy hard and caused a significant loss of jobs that had an impact on household incomes, borrowing on Fuliza has been rapidly increasing.
“A year and a half ago we noted that we had reached the maturity of M-shwari and indeed what we have seen in terms of disbursement is that this year we are six percent below where we were last year. This is just the maturity of the product and these are the numbers we could see after organic of M-shwari. Part of that reduction may be because more people are opting to use Fuliza as opposed to M-shwari," NCBA CEO stated.
Between January and June of this year, the increase in overdrafts amounts to daily borrowing of Sh1.57 billion, up from Sh1.2 billion and Sh972.3 million over comparable periods in 2021 and 2020, respectively.
M-shwari had a 6 percent decrease in loans taken out over the time compared to Fuliza. In comparison to the Sh44.8 billion in loans that were disbursed over the same time period in 2021, M-shwari disbursed Sh42 billion.
With the help of the overdraft service, which was launched in 2019 and is backed by the NCBA Group and the KCB Group, consumers can take care of necessities like shopping, rent, transferring money to loved ones, and paying for goods and services using the mobile money service M-Pesa.
“The growth on Fuliza tell us is not just new customers but also customers that use M-shwari opting to use easier credit available in Fuliza,” the NCBA Group chief executive Mr. John Gachora stated.
NCBA Group chief executive Mr. John Gachora. PHOTO FILE
