The loan is payable within 30 days
However, you can repay the loan before the due date and borrow again. If you pay the loan in less than 30 days your loan limit qualification will increase.
The M-Shwari loan DOES NOT attract any interest. The 7.5% charged is a loan facilitation fee payable only once for each loan taken.
The loan amount is dependent on your loan amount limit, previous loan repayment behaviour and usage of other Safaricom services such as Voice, DATA and M-PESA.
If you have saved Kshs 5000 in your M-Shwari and have a loan of Kshs 2000 and do not repay within the loan duration (30 days), what happens to the money in your deposit account?
- When you borrow the Ksh 2,000, the money in your savings account will be frozen to the loan amount and the loan fee (loan amount Ksh 2,000 loan plus a facilitation fee of Ksh 150).
- You will only be able to access any balance above the frozen amount. The frozen amount will be accessible once you pay the loan. However you can continue to deposit money. Note: During the period the frozen savings will continue to earn interest which will be paid into your M-Shwari at the end of calendar quarter.
For you to qualify for your initial loan you must deposit money in your savings. The amount you can borrow will depend on your usage of Safaricom Voice and DATA as well as your M-PESA usage.
Your loan repayment period will be extended for an additional 30 days and you will be charged an additional 7.5% facilitation fee on your outstanding loan balance.
The outstanding loan balance will be paid off and the extra amount will be moved to your M-Shwari savings account.
If you pay your loan before the due date, will you still be charged the loan facilitation fee of 7.5% on the loan amount?
Yes, the 7.5% is a facilitation fee charged on the cost of processing the loan. Early repayment will increase your future loan limit qualification. Remember your loan limit is dependent on your previous loan repayment behaviour and usage of other Safaricom services such as Voice, DATA and M-PESA.
You have to repay your outstanding loan first before you can borrow another loan
- In other banks, interest is calculated daily but paid out annually while M-Shwari interest is paid out quarterly.
- The daily average deposit balance will earn the customer interest even with the minimum balance amount.
- M-Shwari has competitive interest rates on savings, better that the other banks.
Recently when I applied for a credit reference report in order to assist in my loan application, I discovered that I had been adversely listed for failure to pay for an M-SHWARI loan which I did not take. What can I do?
The loan is payable within 30 days
You need to write to the credit reference bureau that issued the report and inform them that the information contained in the report is disputed. The credit bureau is required to conduct an investigation within 21 days. During this time, the credit bureau will get in-touch with the institution that provided the information and require them to investigate and resolve the matter. Upon completion of the investigation and it is found that the information is either erroneous or incorrect, the credit reference bureau will rectify the information. If after 21 days the bureau is yet to complete the investigation, then it is required to delete such negative information from its records.
You can earn Bonga Points on M-PESA transactions; currently the M-Shwari service will not earn Bonga points, but this is being considered in the near future.