Fuliza is slashing fees in a bid to grow usage. Here’s what you need to know.

Fuliza, a popular overdraft service, has reduced its maintenance fees up to 40% to encourage increased use.

Safaricom, NCBA, and KCB will announce the fee reductions later Wednesday. The three entities that jointly manage Fuliza bet on the fees slashing to improve financial inclusion for Kenyans.

New rates have reduced the daily maintenance rate on overdrafts that range from Ksh.101-Ksh.500, and Ksh.501-Ksh.1,000 respectively by 40% to Ksh.3 or Ksh.6 instead of Ksh.5 or Ksh.10.

Customers with overdrafts of Ksh.1001-Ksh.15,000, Ksh.1,501-Ksh.2,500 and Ksh.2,501-Ksh.70,000, will receive discounts of 10, 20 and 16.7 percent for their daily maintenance fees during the first three days.

Fuliza customers who have signed up and have a positive limit without outstanding balance will receive a discounted tariff effective October 1, 2022.

NCBA stated in a notice about the new discounted tariff that “We have continued assessing the evolution of consumers behavior and economic conditions in order to identify ways we can further enhance our digital financial services.”

Fuliza’s overdraft service was launched in 2019. It allowed customers to make M-Pesa transactions even if they did not have enough funds in their mobile wallets.

Customers can access funds at multiple times as long as they stay within their limits.

Safaricom, KCB, and NCBA disbursed a total amount of Ksh.502.6 million shillings via Fuliza, translating into disbursements of an average Ksh.1.4 trillion per day over 12 months.

Safaricom made Ksh.5.9billion from disbursements, with 6.9 million Kenyans tapping into Fuliza during the year.

Fuliza’s average loan ticket size was Ksh.345.20 during the period. Customers made repayments to Fuliza of Ksh.510.3 trillion in the same year. This represents a repayment rate of 101.5 percent versus disbursal.