Kenyans take Ksh.1.7 billion daily loans on Fuliza, KCB M-Pesa & M-Shwari

Kenyans borrowed Ksh.1.7 billion daily from M-Pesa backed lending platforms Fuliza, M-Pesa and Mshwari between April and September this year.

New data from Safaricom shows a combined Ksh.308.9 billion was borrowed from the three platforms in the period with the size of loans growing from Ksh.224.2 billion or Ksh.1.2 billion daily in the same period in 2020.

Fuliza remains the most popular platform with disbursements growing by 62.4 per cent to Ksh.242.6 billion in the period.

The average Fuliza loan taken sits at Ksh.375.80 while daily active Fuliza customers stand at 1.7 million persons.

Safaricom earned about Ksh.2.8 billion from lending on Fuliza with borrowers repaying an estimated 99 per cent of loans taken or an equivalent Ksh.240.2 billion.

The value of disbursements made on KCB M-Pesa and Mshwari has meanwhile fallen by 15.9 and 8.6 per cent respectively in the period to Ksh.22.9 billion and Ksh.43.4 billion respectively.

The pair also has fewer users rated by one-month active customers at 3.1% and four million persons respectively.

Safaricom earned Ksh.300 million from KCB M-Pesa and a further Ksh.900 million from M-Shwari in the six months.

M-Shwari has the highest rate of defaults with the repayment to disbursal rate at 63.5 per cent compared to Fuliza’s 99 per cent and KCB M-Pesa’s 98.6 per cent.

The average loan size on KCB M-Pesa is Ksh.9,070 and Ksh.6,047 on M-Shwari.