NAIROBI, Kenya — Safaricom has announced a scheduled upgrade of its M-Pesa platform that will temporarily interrupt services in the early hours of Monday, September 22, 2025.
The three-hour maintenance exercise, running from 12:30 am to 3:30 am, will affect all M-Pesa services, including money transfers, payments, and airtime purchases.
Safaricom said the upgrade is aimed at improving system reliability, security, and performance as part of its ongoing commitment to deliver “always-on, safe and worry-free” mobile financial services.
“For 18 years, M-Pesa has continued to transform lives across Kenya, connecting customers to opportunities every day. To support this and meet our promise, we will be conducting a scheduled system upgrade,” the company said in a statement.
The telco noted that the timing of the exercise was deliberately chosen to minimise disruption, while urging customers to complete their transactions ahead of the outage.
Safaricom apologised for any inconvenience caused and thanked users for their patience and continued support.
Launched in 2007, M-Pesa has grown into Africa’s largest mobile money service, powering financial inclusion for millions.
By 2021, it had helped raise Kenya’s financial access rate to 83.7 percent, up from just 26.7 percent in 2006.
The platform today serves more than 70 million customers in over 170 countries and has generated over Sh139.9 billion in revenue as of 2024.
M-Pesa’s ecosystem includes more than one million businesses and agents across Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Ghana, and Egypt.
