NCBA Group, Kenya’s third-biggest financial institution by belongings, disbursed over KES 1 trillion ($7.7 billion) in digital loans in 2024, primarily via Fuliza and M-Shwari, underscoring how cell credit score has grow to be a lifeline for households and small companies because the financial system slows and conventional lending dries up.
Fuliza, NCBA’s overdraft service embedded within the M-Pesa cell cash platform, accounted for many of the lending. Disbursements rose 14.8% to KES 906 billion ($7 billion), up from KES 789 billion ($6.6 billion) a yr earlier. Whereas M-Shwari, the cell savings-and-loans product launched in 2012, noticed a 3.5% drop in disbursements to KES 98 billion ($758.4 million), the volumes stay substantial.
Loop, NCBA’s digital banking app for youthful and salaried customers, doubled its disbursements to KES 2.5 billion ($19.3 million). The three platforms pushed the financial institution’s digital disbursements to KES 1.006 trillion—a document determine for a single yr.
NCBA’s rising cell loans ebook highlights how digital lending has rapidly crammed the hole left by conventional credit score. Many business banks, together with NCBA, KCB Group, Co-operative Financial institution, and Fairness Group, have tightened lending to small companies and low-income households as defaults rise and rates of interest stay excessive.
NCBA’s digital lending success is attributed to the long-standing partnership with Safaricom, whose M-Pesa cell cash infrastructure types the spine of Fuliza and M-Shwari. Fuliza now has 33.4 million customers, whereas M-Shwari serves 32 million—figures that overlap but in addition present the demand for short-term liquidity in an financial system the place tens of millions dwell paycheque to paycheque.
Many use the merchandise not as one-off loans however as a part of their on a regular basis money movement, shopping for groceries, paying hire, or masking college charges.
Since its 2019 launch, Fuliza has disbursed KES 2.9 trillion ($22.4 billion), making it the biggest single digital credit score product by quantity in Kenya. M-Shwari, launched in 2012, has issued KES 787 billion ($6.1 billion) over its lifetime. Loop, although smaller, has now disbursed KES 6.2 billion ($48 million) since 2017, rising steadily as a consequence of its deal with enterprise shoppers and salaried professionals in search of versatile, unsecured credit score.
Kenya stays NCBA’s largest digital lending market, however the financial institution is replicating its mannequin throughout borders via telecom partnerships. Since 2017, it has disbursed over KES 130 billion ($1 billion) via MoKash—its joint product with MTN in Uganda, Rwanda, and Ivory Coast. In Tanzania, NCBA has lent over KES 20.2 ($157 million) by way of M-Pawa, a partnership with Vodacom launched in 2014.
The cross-border push may benefit NCBA from the anticipated development in cell cash and digital banking as smartphone penetration rises and conventional banking infrastructure stays skinny.
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