Telecommunications giant Safaricom PLC has confirmed that its M-Shwari mobile banking service is experiencing a major outage. This comes after an uproar following the inability of thousands of Kenyans to access their funds.
The disruption, which lasted for several hours on Tuesday, November 11, saw Kenyans flood social media platforms with complaints. Some claimed their savings had “disappeared,” while others complained that they were unable to pay for services after experiencing errors while trying to access their funds.
In several responses to user comments on Facebook and X, Safaricom, while confirming the outage, apologised for the technical hitch and assured customers that its team was working to restore services.
“M-Shwari is experiencing system challenges for now, and we are working to resolve with the utmost priority. Our apologies,” the telco wrote in a response to a Kenyan.
“It’s now the third time I’m suffering despite having enough money in my M-Shari account. What did we do wrong to be punished? You still collect transaction costs and service fees, yet we go through all this stress. Honestly, Safaricom PLC should compensate us — this is too much,” Guyo Wario posted.
Safaricom responded, “Our sincere apologies, Guyo. We are aware of the issue affecting Mshwari, and resolution is underway. Please bear with us as we fix.”
Successive disruptions
In another response, the company confirmed that the disruption was not a scheduled maintenance. “It was not a scheduled maintenance. We are working to resolve the issue as soon as possible. Our sincere apologies for the inconvenience,” the telco said.
This is notably the second time in a span of two weeks that the popular M-Shwari mobile savings and loan service has experienced a disruption. On October 30 and part of October 31, 2025, users across Kenya experienced significant disruptions due to a technical outage affecting the service.
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The outage, which also prevented users from accessing their funds, sparked widespread frustration, with customers taking to social media platforms to voice their concerns and demand answers.
Following the uproar, the company, in a statement late October 31, responded, “The M-Shwari service is currently unavailable. We are working earnestly to resolve this technical issue and restore the service fully as soon as possible. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused.”
The company later confirmed that the problem had been resolved, though reconciliation of affected accounts remained ongoing for over three days.
Launched in 2012 through a partnership between Safaricom and NCBA Bank (then Commercial Bank of Africa), M-Shwari was developed as a digital savings and micro-lending platform built on top of M-PESA.
The service was designed to enable users to both save and borrow instantly from their mobile wallets, with Safaricom handling the distribution and customer interface, while NCBA provides the banking infrastructure and credit risk management.
Safaricom reports M-Shwari revenue dip
As of the full year 2025, Safaricom had 7.4 million active M-Shwari customers with deposits totalling Ksh49.3 billion ($382 million). The platform disbursed loans worth Ksh96.4 billion ($748 million) in the same period, according to company financial data.
The latest M-Shwari service disruption on Tuesday comes as Safaricom reported a decline in revenue last week, following service disruptions that caused intermittent outages and delayed transactions, impacting millions of active users and disrupting normal loan disbursements and repayments.
Also Read: Safaricom Reports Dip in M-Shwari Revenue Following Glitches
The platform’s revenue dropped by 14.4% in the Half-Year ended September 2025 compared to the previous period. Despite the challenges, the number of active M-Shwari customers rose by 17.6%, indicating continued demand for the service.
According to Safaricom’s financial results, the value of disbursements on the service fell by 1.8%, while repayments rose by 8.1%, and the repayment rate improved to 108%. The average loan size, however, decreased by nearly 10%.
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