Fuliza’s Poverty Premium: Safaricom, NCBA and KCB Must Explain the Cost of Kenya’s Emergency Credit

When a Kenyan runs short of money at the till, Fuliza offers an immediate escape. The payment goes through. The embarrassment ends. But the shortage becomes a debt carrying charges. For Safaricom and its banking partners, those small emergencies form a substantial business. The public-interest question is whether customers’ growing reliance on emergency borrowing is being celebrated as financial inclusion without enough scrutiny of its cost. Safaricom’s FY2025 disclosures put Fuliza disbursements at Sh981.6 billion. Its investment-banking analyst, NCBA Investment Bank, reported that Safaricom earned approximately Sh4.1 billion in Fuliza revenue that year. These figures describe lending volumes and Safaricom’s revenue respectively—not the partnership’s gross profit. That distinction matters. Claims circulating online that Sh1.2 trillion in lending translates into Sh120 billion in gross profit have no demonstrated accounting basis. A serious examination of Fuliza must follow the actual charges, revenue allocation, funding costs and credit losses. The bank missing from the conversation Presenting Fuliza solely as a Safaricom–NCBA arrangement leaves out KCB. Safaricom’s own disclosures identify both NCBA and KCB as the lenders underwriting the facility. Historical reporting describes a revenue split of 40 per cent each for Safaricom and NCBA, and 20 per cent for KCB. That historical allocation should not be presented as a verified current contractual arrangement without updated confirmation. All three institutions should explain, in accessible terms, what customers collectively pay and how those receipts are divided. The charge beyond the headline fee Safaricom’s published restructuring announcement retained a one-off access fee of 1 per cent. It also provided three days without daily maintenance charges for borrowing of Sh1,000 and below, while retaining daily charges thereafter. A small percentage can sound harmless. Repeated borrowing changes the picture: each fresh draw can attract another access fee, while an unpaid balance can accumulate daily charges. The relevant measure of affordability is therefore what a customer pays across a month of repeated shortages—not simply the advertised price of one emergency transaction. The collection mechanism deserves scrutiny The published terms authorise automatic recovery from money deposited or received into the borrower’s M-PESA account until the outstanding obligation is cleared. They also specify that available funds go towards interest and fees before principal. That creates a powerful collection mechanism. For someone whose next incoming payment is already committed to food, transport or rent, automatic recovery can leave another immediate shortfall. This does not prove that every customer becomes trapped. It does make repeat borrowing, repayment hardship and customers’ ability to exit essential measures of the product’s social impact. The partners have acknowledged prolonged borrowing In the September 2022 restructuring announcement, NCBA chief executive John Gachora said the intended four-to-seven-day overdraft had evolved, with many wallets remaining overdrawn for 14–19 days following the pandemic. The partners presented the pricing changes as a response to that problem. The unanswered question is what happened afterwards. Did customers spend fewer days in debt? Did repeat borrowing decline? Did households retain more disposable income? Those outcomes deserve the same prominence as disbursement growth. Safaricom, NCBA and KCB should publish clear figures on total customer charges, repeat use, time spent overdrawn, hardship complaints and the current revenue-sharing arrangement. Fuliza can provide useful emergency liquidity. But its success should also be measured by whether customers emerge from the emergency. A growing credit business is not, by itself, proof of improving household finances.