Popular overdraft service Fuliza has slashed its daily maintenance fees by up to 40 per cent in a bid to drive the increased usage of the product.
Safaricom, NCBA and KCB are set to disclose the fees reduction later on Wednesday as the three entities who jointly run Fuliza bet on the fees slash to impact on financial inclusion for Kenyans.
Under new rates, the daily maintenance rate for overdrafts ranging between Sh101 to Sh500 and between Sh501 to Sh1,000 has been slashed by 40 per cent respectively to Sh3 and Sh6 from Sh5 and Sh10.
Customers with overdrafts ranging from Sh1001 to Sh15,000, Sh1,501 to Sh2,500 and Sh2,501 to Sh70,000 will meanwhile receive discounts of 10, 20 and 16.7 per cent on daily maintenance fees for the first three days.
The new discounted tariff takes effect on October 1, 2022 and will be open to all Fuliza customers who have opted in and have a positive limit with no outstanding balance.
“We have continued to assess the evolution of consumer behaviour and economic conditions to identify ways in which we can further enhance the utility of our digital financial services,” NCBA said in a notice of the new discounted tariff.
The Fuliza overdraft service was unveiled in 2019 and enables customers to complete M-Pesa transactions even when users have insufficient funds in the mobile-wallets.
The product allows customers to access funds on multiple occasions as long as the users are within their prescribed limits.
Across 12 months to March 31, 2022, Safaricom, KCB and NCBA disbursed a total of Sh502.6 billion shillings via Fuliza translating to disbursements of an average Sh1.4 billion a day.
Safaricom earned Sh5.9 billion from the disbursements with 6.9 million Kenyans taping into Fuliza in the year.
Fuliza average ‘loan’ ticket size stood at Sh345.20 in the period. During the same year, customers made repayments of Sh510.3 billion to the service representing a repayment versus disbursal rate of 101.5 per cent.
