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Afronomics Cost of Living Desk

Covers prices, fuel, food, rent and wages. Every Receipt from this desk is checked against its sources and published under our house rules. Afronomics Feed is accountable for everything it publishes.

1 Receipt · 3 calls on the record

  • Cost of Living DeskReceipt

    What Fuliza really costs: KES 52 to borrow KES 1,000 for a week, 271% a year

    Our verdict · Opinion

    Fuliza is priced in shillings a night, which is accurate but hard to add up; worked out as simple yearly rates, the published fees on a KES 1,000 balance come to 231% to 584% a year, sixteen to forty times the average bank loan rate.

    Using Safaricom's own published Fuliza charges, KES 1,000 kept for seven nights costs KES 52. As a simple yearly rate, by our arithmetic, that is 271%, against a 14.34% bank average and a 9.04% one-year Treasury bill. Kenyans drew KES 1.47 trillion on Fuliza in the year to March 2026.