Mobile money is an electronic wallet service which allows users to store, send, and receive money using their mobile phone. All around the world, we have become a cashless society that makes transactions and pays bills all with the touch of a button.
Safaricom, Kenya’s biggest telecommunication network a few years ago introduced a mobile money platform called M-Pesa that has since changed the way Kenyans do business. From fuelling cars, paying bills, buying food and even airtime, mobile money is the go to for most of us.
However, last night, M-pesa experienced an outage due to a database degradation that affected millions of Kenyans with some of them being held hostage and unable to pay for services leaving them stranded.
While mobile money is less cumbersome, safe, convenient and efficient, are we unknowingly being held hostage by it? The service disruption with M-pesa last night was a shock revelation for most to see just how much we are dependent on mobile money.
@Safaricom_Care I'm stranded at the supermarket coz MPESA isn't working. How long is this going to take?
— Rachael Odhiambo (@RachaelOdhiambo) December 8, 2018
It is really scary just how some of us depend on MPESA.. I rarely walk with money… Especially at night…as long as I have my phone…this outage is beyond inconveniencing..
— Vionna (@Kurlycheeks) December 8, 2018
https://twitter.com/KjMpoa/status/1071501438298320898
@bobcollymore Are you aware mpesa is down and quite a number of us have been stranded for the past 2 hours? #mpesadown
— james kwame simwa (@chegulo) December 8, 2018
Over reliance on Mpesa is a huge risk.
— Ole Naipota (@jaymzn) December 9, 2018
This over dependence on Mpesa for everything is just ruining me. I went to the ATM and I had to stop for few minutes trying to remember ATM pin. #MpesaDown
— Ahmed Mohamed ((ASMALi)) (@Asmali77) December 8, 2018
https://twitter.com/ItsBravin/status/1071483291965026307
WTF!! Kenyans held hostage because of bills via MPESA, I feel for that guy who drove to a petrol station and with all the confidence he drops two words "JAZA TANK" then pap MPESA unavailable,🤔🤔🤔
— Dan Kiiru° (@Danchez_KE) December 8, 2018
https://twitter.com/ItsBravin/status/1071465781408555008
@SafaricomPLC what's happening to mpesa? Lipa na mpesa ain't working. Have been standing at the cashier for the last 20mins.
— Phyllis Munyiva (@munyiva21) December 8, 2018
Hello @SafaricomPLC, I bought fuel for my new Toyota V8 at 1915HRS and MPESA transactions are not going through. Nimekaa kwa petrol station kama vile watu wa nduthi hutegea customers. Aibu gani hizi?😢
— M I S H A K I (@Prylade) December 8, 2018
@SafaricomPLC I'm being held hostage at an establishment after paying by Mpesa and not getting a confirmation message. It's been half an hour and counting. Your customer care lines are not going through.
— Earthling (@NerdyDread) December 8, 2018
Now that Mpesa failed and services were crippled for the better part of the night, can we now see why dependence on a single source of payment method is tragic????
— Elvis (@elvisjonyo) December 9, 2018
In a statement from the Ministry of Information and Communications, the Cabinet Secretary, Joe Mucheru, has now directed the Communication Authority (CA) to work with Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) to establish the causes of the hitch that affected millions of subscribers yesterday.
The CS in the statement, further appealed to Kenyans to have extra platforms so that such occurrence may not affect their transactions in the future.
“Even as we ensure mobile service providers give uninterrupted services, we urge mobile money users to have redundancies to ensure continued services,” Mr. Mucheru said in the press statement.
Do you think the over-dependence of mobile money is a risk?