You may have realized that Safaricom has had some Mpesa Upgrades on the platform the last couple of weeks and you may be wondering why so many updates?
Well, the previous updates were to tweak a few issues before the major update which is this weekend and to check the stability of the platform as the updates were done. So this weekend the update will take a longer time because this will be the major update. The upgrade will start on Saturday 9th September 2017 at 10 PM and it will end on Sunday on 10th September at 11 AM. M-Pesa services will be unavailable at this time so make sure you have some cash to pay your bills if you are going out or for your errands on Sunday morning.
Why is the update important?
The update this weekend will enable the M-PESA platform to allow the gradual introduction of new features in coming months including updates to M-Shwari and KCB Mpesa. It will allow increased interconnectivity for M-PESA and enable customers to have access to more M-PESA services even on the Safaricom app.
In August 2017, Safaricom announced the availability of revamped M-PESA Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), providing the capabilities for anyone to build and deploy their solutions on top of the platform. It allows developers through APIs to be able to support a wider range of capabilities of several different partners (like supermarkets, banks and utility companies like electricity and water).
Safaricom has put in place measures to ensure a smooth transition during the upgrade, which will provide our customers and partners with more features and capabilities in the future,” said Bob Collymore, CEO, Safaricom.
More than 26 million customers use M-PESA, for both business and personal transactions. More than 10.5 million transactions are done every day. Mpesa has launched different innovations including Lipa Na M-PESA cashless payment platform, M-Shwari, KCB M-PESA, M-TIBA and the M-Pesa 1 Tap Go Payment Solution.
