MPesa Experiences Outage

Safaricom’s widely-used mobile money service, M-Pesa experienced an extensive outage lasting over two hours leaving millions of its users unable to conduct transactions.

M-Pesa users attempting to access the service from around noon were met with an error message indicating a system failure. “Failed. M-PESA cannot complete this operation. System error. For Send Money. For more information call or SMS customer services on 100.”

Upon resumption of the services, Safaricom issued a statement on Faceboo saying, “All M-Pesa services are now available. We apologies for any inconveniences caused and thank you for your patience as we worked to restore services.”

M-Pesa, a dominant player in the African mobile money market, boasts over 51 million customers, with Kenya as its largest market, accounting for over 30 million users. The service notably handled 26 billion transactions in the financial year ending March 31, 2023.

SMEs in Kenya hugely depend on Mpesa to receive payment from customers. In the last financial year to March 2023, more than 606,000 businesses were receiving payments through Lipa Na M-PESA.

The outage underlines the critical role M-Pesa plays in daily financial activities across multiple African countries.