Safaricom CEO Peter Ndegwa says Hustler Fund has added M-Pesa 2 million new users

Safaricom Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Peter Ndegwa now says that the launch of the government’s flagship project Hustler Fund late last year has immensely impacted the company’s customer base on both its M-Pesa and Fuliza facilities.

Speaking on Citizen TV’s Tonight Show on Thursday, Mr. Ndegwa revealed that President William Ruto's pilot credit fund has served to increase M-Pesa users by a staggering two million.

Despite acknowledging that the fund had also resulted in reduced overall Fuliza revenue owing to its competitive advantage, he said that since its rollout, more customers have subscribed to the firm’s overdraft facility as an alternative mode of accessing cheap loans.

“We have of course seen a decline in value in terms of revenue but we have seen an increase in usage of Fuliza because it is 50 per cent cheaper; the first three days are free which is very good for us in the long term because it is affordable,” he stated.

“On Huster Fund, we have seen a significant success; more than Ksh.24 billion borrowed by 15 million customers and 6 to 7 million are borrowing on a regular basis. And as a result, we have actually seen 2 million people who were not actually interacting with M-Pesa coming back into M-Pesa and actually borrowing.”

Mr. Ndegwa reiterated that, despite the success of the Hustler Fund, the telco giant can still maximize on granting credit since there is still a market niche as seen in its growing customer base.

“Accessible credit is a very important way of delivering more value to our customers. So we have actually given more value on the Fuliza side,” noted the Safaricom boss.

“The fact that Hustler Fund has been successful shows there is still a very big opportunity and the need has still not been satisfied for affordable credit.”