How to withdraw money from your MPESA Fuliza balance on your phone, no need to send to another number

Fuliza is a mobile-based overdraft facility offered by Safaricom and was unveiled back in 2019 but was limited in terms of its use cases, allowing customers to send cash to friends and family, pay bills and buy goods, and buy airtime for themselves and others.

With the recent addition of the ability to withdraw cash from the overdraft facility, Fuliza has become more functional and versatile. This feature now allows customers from having to get another SIM card, send money to another person who does not have Fuliza, or tell a sender not to send money to them because they have an overdraft. It also makes the product more closely resemble a loan product, despite the company’s insistence that Fuliza is not a loan product.

How to Withdraw from your MPESA Fuliza balance

• Go to your MPESA Menu
• Tap on Withdraw
• Select either “Withdraw at Agent” or “Withdraw at ATM“
• Follow the prompts
• When asked to confirm to “Fuliza“, tap on proceed 
• Fuliza charges will be shown as well as withdrawal charges

Fuliza is also one of Safaricom’s biggest earners, having overtaken other similar products like KCB M-PESA and M-Shwari in terms of earnings. The value of Fuliza disbursements had reached KES 502.66 billion by March 2022, with a 43.1% YoY increase, and a repayment versus disbursement rate of 101.5%. Furthermore, Fuliza’s revenue had reached KES 5.94 billion, a 31.0% YoY increase.

In addition, rates have been adjusted downwards, meaning customers now pay less than the initial rates, which makes the product more accessible to a broader customer base.

It is also notable that Safaricom hasn’t officially announced the new cash withdrawal feature, which might be a strategy of the company. Since the feature is not communicated it may be less likely for people to withdraw large amount of money and non-repayment, which in turn can help the company maintaining the high repayment rate.