A Safaricom engineer has been charged by the telco for tampering with Fuliza, the carrier’s overdraft facility.
According to reports first seen by the Star, the employee is said to have adjusted Fuliza limits of some lines in a fraud case that saw the worker obtain KES 1.4 million illegally.
The accused, who has since denied the charges, was a Safaricom employee, working as an engineer for the carrier’s financial services system planning.
The alleged crime was committed last month in October.
Specifically, the software engineer adjusted Fuliza limits of 14 lines, which then accessed between KES 50K all the way to KES 100K.
According to people investigating the case, the accused then allowed other people, who reportedly are close to him, to use a variety of Safaricom lines to access the extended Fuliza limit.
He has since been released on bail.
Safaricom has been exploring how to take advantage of Fuliza to rake in more revenue.
The extremely lucrative facility has proved its usefulness because it made the company billions of shillings in the first half of the 2021/2022 FY. The profits were more than double what the firm made from M-Shwari and KCB M-PESA.
Specifically, the company disbursed KES 242 billion in the first half of the 2021/2022 FY.
It made KES 2.8 billion over the same period.
Fuliza, as it stands, has more than 1.7 million daily customers.
Soon, businesses will also be able to access the facility in a move that seeks to expand Fuliza’s use cases.
At the moment, Fuliza can only be used for paying bills or sending money.
Just recently, the carrier allowed customers to buy airtime from the overdraft. This was not possible before, and customers were forced to use third-party airtime resellers to purchase airtime from Fuliza.
