By Billy Mijungu
In the name of convenience, Safaricom’s Fuliza has become a silent predator, a digital debt snare wrapped in the alluring fabric of financial flexibility. What began as a short term solution to enable seamless mobile transactions has morphed into a normalized dependency for millions of Kenyans, with ramifications far beyond the everyday lipanampesa moment.
At face value, Fuliza appears as a friendly overdraft facility. You want to complete a transaction but your M-PESA balance is short. No worries, Fuliza steps in, fronts you the cash, and you’re sorted. Repay it when you top up. Simple, right?
Not quite. Here is what Safaricom doesn’t tell you or tells you in the smallest of fine print that vanishes in the speed of a hakikisha confirmation. First, any money sent to a number with Fuliza debt becomes unrecoverable. Reversals are practically impossible regardless of circumstance. Safaricom offers no clarity, just a cold unapologetic “transaction cannot be reversed,” a form of institutionalized thuggery hiding behind corporate terms and conditions.
Then there’s the cost. Fuliza is, by all metrics, more expensive than most formal credit facilities in the country. The facility charges fees and daily interest, which, compounded annually, exceed the original borrowed amount multiple times. This is a blatant violation of basic financial ethics and arguably regulatory guidelines that state profits from credit must not exceed the principal. Yet, here we are, normalizing digital debt that silently bleeds users dry.
Even more concerning is the long term damage to your financial profile.
Fuliza debts are recorded. Each time you borrow, your credit behavior is flagged. Use it frequently and your credit score starts to deteriorate. Slowly, you are boxed into the category of small time borrower, a status that locks you out from accessing larger, growth oriented loans from banks and financial institutions. Fuliza doesn’t just give you debt, it cheapens your financial reputation.
And then there is the psychological entrapment. Once you are hooked to Fuliza, it becomes reflexive. Even when you receive money from a loan, a side hustle, or a friend, it first goes to clear the Fuliza balance. You start sending money with the knowledge that it will be swallowed whole by this invisible hole. It alters your financial discipline. You begin to delay repayment, let the fees stack, ignore the messages, and soon, it becomes just another part of life. But this isn’t life. This is debt dependence.
Fuliza was designed as a bridge but it’s become a cage. Its ubiquity has turned it from a lifeline into a leash. For a nation striving to build a generation of financially empowered citizens, Fuliza undermines that dream by keeping people in constant micro debt.
It is time to break free. Sign off Fuliza. It is not helping you grow, it is making you dependent. This is not financial inclusion, this is financial entrapment. And for many Kenyans, Fuliza has become a debt trap of monumental proportion with no end in sight.
The only way to win is to step out. Opt out. Reclaim your financial future.
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Forward #TusongeMbele
Edited by Sandra Blessing
