Safaricom Extends M-Pesa Overdraft to Kenya's 2 Million Micro-Merchants

Safaricom has opened its M-Pesa overdraft service to Kenya's more than 2 million micro-merchants, letting small businesses complete payments even when their mobile money balance runs short.

The Kenyan operator announced the move on Thursday. The extension applies to Fuliza Ya Pochi, an overdraft facility that has existed since 2019 and until now served M-Pesa customers and merchants at large. The new step ties the facility specifically to Safaricom's small-business wallet product.

What exactly has Safaricom changed?

The service now reaches users of Pochi La Biashara, an M-Pesa feature that lets entrepreneurs and informal businesses separate business funds from personal funds on a single SIM card and mobile number. For a market where many traders run their commerce and household spending through one phone line, that separation matters.

With Fuliza Ya Pochi activated, these merchants can draw on additional funds when their account lacks sufficient balance. The facility covers paying suppliers, making Buy Goods purchases, sending money, and settling utility payments — regardless of what sits in the wallet at the moment of the transaction.

Safaricom group CEO Peter Ndegwa said the goal is straightforward: keep businesses running and serving customers without interruption.

"Across Kenya, thousands of micro-businesses face daily cash flow gaps that can mean missed sales, delayed stock purchases, or postponed supplier payments," Ndegwa said in a statement. "Fuliza Ya Pochi helps merchants overcome these short-term challenges while continuing to build their businesses. As merchants transact and grow on M-Pesa, they create a pathway to greater financial opportunities."

Who qualifies, and how does repayment work?

Access is not automatic for every trader. The service is available to merchants who have actively used Pochi La Biashara for more than six months, a threshold that filters for established usage patterns before credit enters the picture.

Once enrolled, each merchant receives a Fuliza Ya Pochi limit sized to their business activity rather than a flat cap. Repayment runs in the background: amounts drawn are recovered automatically from future payments into the merchant's Pochi wallet, so the merchant does not manage a separate repayment schedule.

Why this sits at the center of Safaricom's model

The launch extends a pattern that has defined Safaricom since M-Pesa's introduction: building financial products on top of a mobile money rails network that reaches traders who often lack conventional banking relationships. Fuliza, the consumer overdraft product from which Fuliza Ya Pochi derives, has been one of the most heavily used credit facilities in the Kenyan market since its 2019 debut.

The business case rests on scale. With over 2 million micro-merchants in Kenya by Safaricom's count, even modest per-transaction fees on overdraft usage translate into meaningful revenue, while the facility deepens merchants' dependence on the M-Pesa ecosystem for their daily operations.

For the merchants themselves, the product addresses a chronic constraint of informal trade — the gap between money owed and money in hand. An overdraft that covers a supplier payment today, repaid from tomorrow's sales, is a working-capital tool that formal banking has rarely offered to street-level businesses at this scale.

Ndegwa framed the service as more than credit, positioning transaction history on M-Pesa as a bridge to broader financial inclusion: as merchants transact and grow, they build what he called a pathway to greater financial opportunities.

Safaricom has not announced a timeline for further expansion of the facility beyond the Pochi La Biashara base, but the rollout is live now for qualifying merchants across Kenya.