M-Pesa services off periodically from Friday for major upgrade

M-Pesa services will be unavailable from 1am to 3am an upgrade, Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore has said.

International money transfer services, KCB M-Pesa, M-Shwari and M-Kesho services will be unavailable at the same time on July 5.

In mid-July, Safaricom will switch to a new mobile money transfer platform, resulting in a 12 hour outage.

In a statement on Thursday, Collymore said the "major upgrade" will begin on Friday and take place for the next three weeks.

"A number of M-Pesa services will be withdrawn in the lead to the changeover," he said

The chief executive noted the new platform will allow Safaricom to roll out features and enhancements for the more than 26 million Kenyans who use it.

“This upgrade paves the way for the next phase of M-Pesa and will enable [the delivery of] more value for our customers and partners,” he said.

He noted M-Shwari and KCB M-Pesa will be incorporated into the Safaricom App and more partners will offer services on the enhanced platform.

"This will be through a new set of APIs that will simplify the process of integration into M-Pesa, cutting down the time it takes from weeks to a few days, or even hours," he said.

Collymore added the automation of different M-Pesa procedures will eliminate the requirement for customers and merchants to make such requests through the call centre.

SOURCE:THE STAR