Safaricom is in the final stages of “bringing M-PESA back home“. With the company finalizing the migration process this coming weekend, service interruption is expected and will happen and the following services will be unavailable as from 11 PM tonight (Thursday 16th April 2015):
- Sending money to unregistered customers
- Registration of new customers on M-Shwari or M-Kesho
- M-PESA PIN change
- New M-PESA customer registration
- Activation of customer’s M-PESA accounts after SIM registration
The final upgrade process runs throughout the weekend (from 11pm Saturday night through to Sunday noon) and will in addition to the above services now cripple most of the M-PESA services used by registered users as well including borrowing and repayment of M-Shwari loans, sending and receiving money, use of Lipa Na M-PESA to pay bills and for services and doing bank to M-PESA or vice-versa transactions. Users of M-PESA in neighbouring Tanzania will also be affected by the service interruption.
Once the upgrade to the new system, which will see M-PESA hosted locally, is complete, Safaricom’s 19 million customers can expect improved service with the number of transactions per second expected to increase to about 900 up from the current 450 as well as provide a deeper integration level with other partners like banks.
