Coming soon: Second generation M-Pesa

Safaricom has embarked on the final preparations to bring M-Pesa servers to Kenya from Germany. This will be in preparation for next week’s launch of the second generation of its M-Pesa platform, which will see a full scale system upgrade aimed at improving efficiencies and speed.

Safaricom had first announced plans to replace its M-Pesa platform last year, seeking to migrate the current platform to an enhanced platform that will allow for faster transactions, improved stability as well as enable more functionality from the service.

“This is a milestone moment for the M-Pesa platform as we embark on our final preparations ahead of the full migration process. We anticipate this new platform will unlock a new era of transformational mobile financial services,” said Safaricom General Manager in charge of financial services Betty Mwangi.

The company will be integrating all existing internal systems including security, redundancy and disaster recovery on the new platform. “ What this means is that we are not only offering faster speeds and more secure transactions to our customers, we are also creating the foundation for a more accessible system that will further enable the rapidly growing mobile money ecosystem in Kenya,” said Ms Mwangi.

According to Ms Mwangi, the new platform brings several benefits such as reduced points of failure, functional flexibility that will allow a wider range of customer services, easier integration onto M-Pesa for third parties and improved business continuity.