This archive report was first published on 26 March 2020.
MPESA, Kenya's leading mobile money service, experienced a major outage on Wednesday evening, leaving thousands of customers in limbo.
According to reports, customers who tried to transact on the platform received a message from Safaricom stating that the systems were down.
Those who rely on mobile loan services like KCB Loans and Mshwari were also unable to access them, while users of the Safaricom App were similarly affected.
As the outage continued, Kenyans took to social media to express their frustration, with some users sharing their experiences of being unable to access their funds.
One user, @KayvohMmoja, tweeted: 'What's up KCB MPESA? You have not restored your system since yesterday.'
Another user, @Benard88635732, tweeted: '@Safaricom_Care my mpesa is not working.'
The outage comes at a time when the government has been urging Kenyans to embrace the use of mobile money services and reduce cashless transfers as one of the ways to curb the spread of Coronavirus.
President Uhuru Kenyatta had previously encouraged the use of cashless transactions, saying: 'In order to avoid the risk of transmission through physical handling of money, we encourage the use of cashless transactions.'
However, the MPESA outage has raised concerns about the reliability of mobile money services in Kenya.
As one user, @Kamau_Jirani, tweeted: 'I am so disappointed, you advise us to avoid cash, just yesterday someone sent me KSh 430 on Mpesa for clothes I sold him.'
The outage has also highlighted the importance of having a reliable and efficient mobile money system in place.
As the government continues to encourage the use of mobile money services, it is essential that providers like Safaricom take steps to ensure that their systems are reliable and efficient.
