Safaricom has successfully completed the scheduled M-PESA upgrade, the largest since it was localised over a decade ago, restoring services early Monday following a three-hour cutover.
The upgrade, dubbed Fintech 2.0, moves Africa’s second-largest mobile money service to a cloud-native architecture, allowing it to process 6,000 transactions per second at launch, with the potential to double as demand rises.
“The scheduled M-PESA upgrade was successfully completed and all services fully restored. All M-PESA services are now available. We look forward to serving you better and providing you with seamless experiences,” the telco said in a tweet.
The migration addresses long-standing limitations. The previous system, operating near a 4,500-transactions-per-second ceiling, left little room for growth. Fintech 2.0 leverages microservices hosted on Huawei Cloud, enabling Safaricom to update individual components without taking the platform offline, a major step for reliability and speed.
Sources familiar with operations say engineers are monitoring live transactions to detect irregularities, a process expected to last several days. Other insiders indicate that the operator now aims to accelerate integrations with banks, fintechs, and developers, opening the door for new APIs, merchant credit products, and cross-border payment solutions.
M-PESA handles more than 21 billion transactions annually, serving over 50 million users across Africa, including payments, remittances, credit, and e-commerce. The upgrade is expected to strengthen its operations as a regional financial backbone, particularly for small businesses and cross-border trade, aligning with goals under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
Competition is getting higher. Airtel Money and other digital-first fintechs have steadily expanded, putting pressure on M-PESA’s top place. The upgrade is not just a technical improvement, but aims to maintain leadership across the market.
In modernising its infrastructure, Safaricom positions M-PESA as a more agile, scalable, and partner-friendly platform. This change reflects the vision first backed by late CEO Bob Collymore, who framed the company’s future as a platform play rather than a closed service.
With digital payments growing ever more competitive, Fintech 2.0 could enhance mobile money in Africa.
