Safaricom Launches ZiiDi Sharia to Expand Investment Access for Muslim Customers

Story by Monyonge O’kebati

Safaricom has launched ZiiDi Sharia, a Sharia-compliant investment product designed to extend the company’s growing financial-services offering to customers seeking investment options that comply with Islamic principles.
Speaking during the launch, Safaricom CEO Peter Ndegwa said the product was part of the company’s long-term commitment to financial inclusion and its strategy of expanding beyond payments and transactions to savings, investments and insurance.
Ndegwa said Safaricom’s approach had always been centred on inclusion, noting that the company had evolved from a telecommunications provider into a major player in Kenya’s digital and financial-services ecosystem.
He said the launch of M-Pesa in 2007 had significantly expanded access to financial services, but Safaricom was now seeking to help customers go beyond sending, receiving and spending money to building their financial health through saving and investing.
“We have been very successful in enabling people to transact and pay. That is what we call financial inclusion. But we have started to expand the services we offer so that people can save, invest and insure. That is financial health,” Ndegwa said.
He said Safaricom’s existing ZiiDi product had attracted almost three million customers, demonstrating the appetite among Kenyans for easily accessible investment products.
Ndegwa said the conventional ZiiDi product had accumulated about Sh20 billion in investments by the time Safaricom announced its previous financial results, highlighting what he described as strong demand for liquid investment products.
He explained that customers can invest and withdraw from the product without additional cost, giving them flexibility over their funds.
However, Ndegwa said Safaricom recognised that its existing investment offering did not meet the needs of every segment of society.
“That was not complete because there are segments of our population that were not covered, and that’s why ZiiDi Sharia is so important for us,” he said.
Serving Safaricom’s Muslim customer base
Ndegwa said the launch was particularly significant because Muslims form an important part of Safaricom’s customer base.
He disclosed that the company has approximately five million customers from the Islamic faith, making the Muslim community a significant part of its business.
He said Safaricom’s decision to introduce a Sharia-compliant investment product was therefore not simply a response to a business opportunity, but part of its broader philosophy of ensuring different sections of society can access its services.
Ndegwa said the company has previously developed initiatives targeting different groups, including women, young people and refugees, as part of its wider financial and digital inclusion agenda.
He said Safaricom also maintains engagement with its Muslim customers during Ramadan, including an annual gathering, describing the relationship as one that has developed over time.
Against that background, he said ZiiDi Sharia was intended to give Muslim customers an investment option aligned with their faith while also allowing them to participate in the broader financial system.
ZiiDi builds on Safaricom’s investment push
Ndegwa said ZiiDi Sharia builds on the success of Safaricom’s existing ZiiDi product, which has provided customers with an avenue to invest while retaining access to their money.
He said the company was now seeking to extend that opportunity to customers who require investments structured according to Sharia principles.
The product therefore forms part of Safaricom’s broader transition from providing basic mobile and payment services to offering a wider range of financial products.
Ndegwa said the company’s evolution over the past two decades had been driven by the need to identify gaps in society and develop products that respond to the needs of different customer groups.
Safaricom, which is approaching its 26th year, began primarily as a telecommunications company before expanding into mobile money and other digital and financial services.
Ndegwa said the company’s central objective throughout that evolution had remained inclusion.
He acknowledged the role of the Capital Markets Authority, KCB and other partners involved in bringing ZiiDi Sharia to the market, as well as Safaricom employees who worked on the product.
CMA welcomes the new product
The launch comes with regulatory backing from the Capital Markets Authority, which has described the growth of Islamic finance as an opportunity to deepen financial inclusion and expand Kenya’s capital markets.
CMA representative Justus Ogot said the authority approved the ZiiDi Sharia Money Market Fund in February 2025, following growing demand for Sharia-compliant investment products.
Ogot said Islamic finance should not be viewed as a financial system exclusively meant for Muslims, but as a form of ethical finance that can serve a wider population.
He said Kenya had an opportunity to attract more capital and position itself as a regional centre for Islamic finance, but this would require deliberate regulatory reforms, coordination and sustained implementation.
Ogot also pointed to the rapid expansion of Islamic finance globally, saying total Islamic finance assets reached approximately US$3.88 trillion in 2025.
He said new sukuk issuances rose by 25.6 per cent to about US$234.4 billion, with outstanding sukuk reaching approximately US$900 billion.
The CMA representative said Kenya and Tanzania were among the East African markets showing increasing interest in Islamic finance.
He said the regulator was working on reforms touching on legislation governing capital markets, insurance and retirement benefits to create a more supportive environment for Sharia-compliant financial products.
The launch of ZiiDi Sharia therefore marks another stage in Safaricom’s expansion into investment services, while giving its Muslim customers an investment option designed around their financial and religious requirements.
For Safaricom, the product represents an extension of its financial-inclusion strategy; for the capital markets sector, it offers another avenue through which more Kenyans can participate in regulated investments