Kenyans woke up on Wednesday to find that the mobile money service they rely on every day was not working properly.
From the early hours of the morning, people across the country reported that they could not send money, buy airtime, pay bills or withdraw cash through M-PESA.
Failed transactions became common, and some users said money they moved from savings accounts like M-Shwari simply disappeared without showing up in their wallets.
According to a Nyakundi Report post on X, multiple M-PESA users described difficulties accessing the service, with complaints about failed transactions and disruptions to normal operations.
The report noted that the full extent of the problem was still unclear at the time and that Safaricom had not yet given a clear public explanation of what caused the outage.
The disruption hit hard because so many people depend on M-PESA for daily needs. Commuters found themselves unable to pay matatu fares.
Small traders could not receive payments from customers. Families struggled to send money for school fees or household expenses.
One user said they had been stuck since 2 a.m. because of a bill of just 650 shillings.
Another simply posted that it was impossible to send money at all. Social media filled with similar stories as the morning progressed.
Safaricom later confirmed there was a system issue affecting M-PESA. In responses to customers on X, the company apologised and said its teams were working to restore normal service.
One reply stated that the problem had been escalated to the relevant technical team and asked users to be patient.
A later message repeated the apology and said staff were working urgently to minimise the inconvenience. However, the company has not released a detailed public statement explaining the cause, how many people were affected, or exactly when full service would return.
This is not the first time Kenyans have faced problems with mobile money platforms. Only days earlier, some linked services experienced their own interruptions. The repeated glitches raise questions about how prepared the systems are for the heavy daily use they now face.
M-PESA handles tens of millions of transactions every day. When it fails, ordinary people feel the impact immediately.For many, the outage was more than an inconvenience.
It stopped people from getting to work, delayed payments and left some without access to their own money. As technical teams continue working on the problem, users are left waiting and hoping the service returns to normal soon.
In a country where mobile money has become the backbone of everyday financial life, even short disruptions create real hardship.
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