NAIROBI, Kenya — Safaricom Plc is poised to roll out a suite of novel features on its M-PESA platform, including a controversial “share your wallet” function, following the silent completion of a monumental system upgrade dubbed “Fintech 2.0.”
In a televised interview, CEO Peter Ndegwa unveiled the capabilities of the new technological backbone, which promises to eliminate service downtime and unlock a new era of financial innovation for East Africa’s largest mobile money platform.
The multi-billion shilling upgrade, finalized a month ago, is built on three core pillars: microservices, cloud enablement, and an artificial intelligence-driven platform. Safaricom stated the overhaul was necessitated by soaring transaction volumes and evolving customer demands.
“We’ve launched a major revamped M-PESA platform we are calling Fintech 2.0,” Ndegwa said on KTN. “This new platform has more speed, more capacity, and is more resilient. You’ll never hear that M-PESA has been shut down for repair or maintenance.”
The enhanced infrastructure allows Safaricom to introduce features previously technically challenging. The most headline-grabbing is a “share your wallet” option, permitting users to grant trusted individuals—such as a partner or child—access to conduct transactions from their primary account.
“That might be controversial,” Ndegwa acknowledged, hinting at potential consumer protection and data privacy debates the feature may trigger.
Other planned functionalities include a bill-splitting tool for groups to share expenses directly and the expansion of tap-to-pay capabilities, positioning M-PESA to compete more aggressively with traditional bank cards and emerging fintech apps.
A central benefit of Fintech 2.0, according to the company, is the deep integration of Artificial Intelligence. Ndegwa positioned AI as a critical tool for safeguarding customer funds.
“The Fintech 2.0 platform incorporates AI capabilities, enabling the company to detect fraud earlier and more effectively protect its customers,” he stated. This aligns with a growing national emphasis on cybersecurity within Kenya’s digital financial ecosystem.
Beyond security, the AI is engineered to analyze transaction patterns to deliver more personalized services and product recommendations to the platform’s over 30 million active users.
The multi-year upgrade represents Safaricom’s most significant technological investment in M-PESA since its launch, underscoring its strategic importance in the face of intensifying competition from rivals like Airtel Money and a wave of agile fintech startups.
The shift to a microservices architecture—where the platform is broken into smaller, independent units—grants Safaricom unprecedented agility. It can now update specific services or launch new products without taking the entire system offline, a critical advantage in a fast-moving market.
The announcement, however, arrives amidst heightened public and regulatory scrutiny of corporate data handling practices in Kenya. The “share your wallet” feature is likely to draw immediate attention from the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (ODPC), which has been actively establishing guidelines for digital financial services.
The Fintech 2.0 upgrade solidifies M-PESA’s infrastructure for the next decade, transforming it from a payments highway into a dynamic, intelligent platform. How Safaricom navigates the ensuing governance and privacy discussions will determine the ultimate scope and public acceptance of its new features.
