Safaricom has announced a significant $300 million (KSh40 billion) upgrade to M-PESA, Africa’s most successful mobile money platform, marking a bold move towards enhancing service reliability, security, and innovation.
The investment, which heralds the arrival of M-PESA 2.0, was revealed by Safaricom Group CEO Peter Ndegwa last week. Speaking during the announcement, Ndegwa described the upgrade as “the next big leap” aimed at boosting the platform’s stability, processing capacity, and customer experience.
“By the time it’s fully rolled out, there will be zero downtime for customers. Safety and security are always our top priority,” Ndegwa affirmed.
He further emphasised Safaricom’s commitment to protecting user data and financial transactions. “To maintain customer trust, we stay ahead of fraudsters and cyber threats, with strong guardrails in place and ethical hackers testing our systems. We’re constantly building resilience so customers can rely on our services with confidence,” he said.
The upgrade announcement comes as M-PESA marks its 18th anniversary, having first launched in March 2007. Since then, the platform has grown exponentially and now serves over 70 million users across more than 170 countries.
M-PESA’s impact spans across multiple African markets, including Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Lesotho, Ghana, and Egypt. It currently supports over one million businesses and agents within these regions.
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The service also powers innovation through its Daraja platform, which has facilitated more than 55,000 integrations and currently hosts over 100,000 developers—contributing to a vibrant fintech ecosystem.
With an existing capacity to process 4,000 transactions per second and handling approximately 100 million transactions daily, M-PESA remains firmly positioned as Africa’s foremost fintech solution.
