NAIROBI, Kenya, Oct 15- The number of borrowers on Safaricom’s Fuliza platform more than doubled in the 2020 financial year, from 10.7 million in the 2019 Financial Year to 20.8 million.
In its Sustainable Business Report, the telco also revealed a record jump in the amount of money borrowed in the period under review.
Kenyans borrowed Sh245 billion in the 2020 Financial Year, compared to Sh29 billion borrowed a year earlier.
The total number of transactions in the period under review hit 393 million compared to 46.4 million registered in 2019.
“The traction that the popular facility had from its launch in January 2019 continued through the period under review, with strong growth in both numbers of customers and volumes of disbursements,” reads the report.
The statistics reflect borrower’s appetite during the pandemic owing to limited economic activities.
A report by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics revealed that 1.7 million Kenyans lost their jobs between April and June 2020.
Fuliza is underwritten by KCB Group and NCBA Group, which allows customers to complete M-Pesa transactions even with insufficient funds in their mobile wallets.
The platform charges a one percent access fee with a maintenance charge that shifts depending on the amount borrowed.
The service automatically deducts funds deposited in a customers’ M-Pesa account to settle the outstanding overdraft.