Commercial Bank of Africa (CBA) and Safaricom have launched an overdraft facility known as Fuliza to enable customers to send money or pay for goods and services when they have insufficient balance in M-Pesa wallets.
This is aimed at solving the current rate of failed mobile money transactions performed daily due to insufficient funds which currently stands at 58 per cent.
“Our continued collaboration with Safaricom aims to drive financial inclusion in a digital economy. With our technological innovation and responsible lending principles, we will advertently bring more people into the financial system, encourage more transactions, more savings and, ultimately achieve stronger economic growth,” said Isaac Awuondo, CBA Group Managing Director.
The overdraft facility will attract a daily charge of 0.5 per cent of the borrowing as a top-up to enable M-Pesa clients complete transactions.
Whenever a customer receives an inflow into their M-PESA wallet, the overdrawn position is regularized. During this period when a customer’s M-PESA wallet is overdrawn, one shall still have access to their M-Shwari limit.
Fuliza is targeted at all Safaricom’s M-PESA customers that have been active for at least the past 6 months and maintain a good M-Shwari credit performance history. The service will be offered on the M-PESA Sim Toolkit (STK) Application and My Safaricom App.
To subscribe (opt-in) to this service, a customer shall dial *234# and agree to the presented Fuliza Terms and Conditions. One does not necessarily have to be an existing M-Shwari customer in order to opt into this service.
Safaricom upgraded its Lipa na M-Pesa system to enable customers to make faster and private cashless payments at more than 2,500 sales points by issuing each cashier with a distinct till number.
