Safaricom sparks social media anger after second M-Pesa glitch in two weeks

Safaricom’s #ticker:SCOM mobile money platform M-Pesa was Monday down for more than three hours for a second day in two weeks, making it impossible for users to send or receive money or pay for goods and services.

Users took to social media to report the issue and express their frustrations, raising concerns over the telco’s financial services reliability.

“We had a technical problem which has since been resolved,” Safaricom chief executive Michael Joseph told the Business Daily.

Earlier, Safaricom had acknowledged the glitch on their social media pages without specifying the error.

“We are aware of the technical fault affecting the service and urgently addressing it. Sorry for inconveniences caused,” Safaricom said on their twitter handle.

Monday’s glitch follows a similar one last week, which the company failed to explain to the more than 27.66 million people who rely on it for financial services.

According to data by Communication Authority of Kenya, Safaricom carried out 655,949,211 transactions between July to September 2019 with a value of Sh1.755 trillion.

On average, this translates to more than 7.28 million transactions in a day.