Safaricom Plc and GulfCap Investment Bank have launched the Ziidi Shariah Money Market Fund on the M-Pesa platform, allowing customers to start investing with as little as KSh100.
The Capital Markets Authority approved the fund in February 2025. CMA Chief Executive Wyckliffe Shamiah, represented at the launch by Justus Agoti, said the product helps extend financial inclusion and pool capital, noting that global Islamic finance assets were USD 3.8 trillion in 2025 and that Kenya and Tanzania are key markets in East Africa.
Safaricom Group Chief Executive Peter Ndegwa said the fund aligns with the company’s inclusive brand and makes investing simple, affordable and accessible while matching the values that guide customers’ lives.
GulfCap Investment Bank Chief Executive Saud Shahbal said the fund will invest exclusively in short-term, highly liquid instruments held with Sharia-compliant banks, preserving capital, providing daily liquidity and ensuring returns are free of interest (riba) and derived only from ethical activities.
Customers can access the fund through the My OneApp app or by dialing *334#, with a minimum investment of KSh100 and subsequent top-ups from KSh10. Deposits and withdrawals to M-Pesa wallets are free, daily returns can be tracked, and there is no maximum investment limit, although M-Pesa caps apply – a daily limit of KSh500,000 and a per-transaction limit of KSh250,000. Investors may also choose to lock funds for a set period.
The new fund operates independently from Safaricom’s conventional Ziidi Money Market Fund, which launched in January 2025 with Standard Investment Bank and ALA Capital as managers. That fund’s assets more than doubled to KSh18.7 billion in the year to March 2026 and had 1.15 million customers by September 2025, representing nearly half of Kenya’s unit-trust investors.
M-Pesa serves 41 million customers and generated KSh182.7 billion in revenue for Safaricom in the year to March 2026, reinforcing the telco’s broader financial-services ecosystem.
