Safaricom’s revenues from its popular overdraft facility Fuliza have dipped by 8.3 percent to Sh5.4 billion in the year to March following the slashing of the fees on the platform.
The revenue stood at Sh5.9 billion the year before. The telco in October last year reduced the daily charges on overdraft loans, with the fee on borrowings of between Sh1,000 and Sh1,500 dropping to Sh18 from Sh20.
A zero-free period of three days was introduced on amounts ranging from Sh101 to Sh1,000. Those borrowing Sh500 beyond the three days now pay a fee of Sh2.5 which was halved from the previous Sh5.
Lower Fuliza charges have, nevertheless, led to higher disbursements with the value of loans issued from the facility rising by 39.6 percent to Sh701.5 billion from Sh502.6 billion.
This implies consumers took overdrafts averaging Sh1.92 billion a day in the year to March in contrast with Sh1.38 billion daily in the period prior.
Similarly, Fuliza has attained greater usage with the distinct number of customers deploying the solution rising 18 percent to 8.1 million persons from 6.9 million individuals at the same time last year.
The average ticket size (size of loan issued to individual customers) contracted for the second year running to Sh298 from Sh345.20.
Repayments made on the disbursed loans, however, tracked new disbursements, growing by 31.6 percent to Sh671.6 billion from Sh510.3 billion in March 2022.
Even so, the repayment versus disbursal rate has eased by 5.8 percentage points to 95.7 percent from 101.5 percent last year.
