NAIROBI, Kenya Jan 23 – Safaricom, Kenya’s leading telecommunications provider, says it has successfully resolved a technical issue that had disrupted its PayBill service, affecting millions of users.
The disruption resulted in intermittent service interruptions on Monday night, causing some transactions to remain incomplete on the M-Pesa mobile money platform.
Safaricom moved swiftly to address the problem and restore normalcy to its PayBill services.
The telecommunications giant acknowledged the hiccup in a statement, saying, “We experienced service intermittence with PayBill payments that resulted in some transactions not being completed on M-Pesa.”
It assured its customers that the technical issue had been resolved, and it was actively monitoring its services to prevent any further disruptions. Safaricom also issued an apology for any inconvenience caused by the temporary disruption.
It follows a recent service disruption on January 9th when M-Pesa experienced momentary downtime before it was restored.
M-Pesa, Safaricom’s mobile money platform, has continued to be a vital financial tool for millions of Kenyans. In March 2022, the platform’s monthly usage surpassed 30 million customers, highlighting its significance in the country’s financial landscape.
Kenya remains the most active market for M-Pesa, boasting over 30 million of the service’s 51 million customers spread across various countries, including Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, Lesotho, Ghana, and Egypt.
Safaricom’s Lipa Na M-Pesa platform has witnessed remarkable growth.
Data shows that the number of businesses accepting payments through this platform more than doubled, surging from 173,000 in April 2020 to an impressive 387,000 by March 2022.
Safaricom continues to play a pivotal role in Kenya’s digital and financial evolution, providing essential services to millions of customers and contributing to the growth of the mobile money ecosystem in the region.
