NAIROBI, Kenya — Telecommunications giant Safaricom PLC has confirmed that its M-Shwari mobile banking service is experiencing a significant outage, sparking widespread frustration after thousands of Kenyans were unable to access their funds on Tuesday, November 11.
The disruption, which lasted for several hours, led to an influx of complaints across social media platforms, with users reporting errors while attempting to pay for services and some claiming their savings had “disappeared.”
Safaricom apologizes for technical hitch
Responding to the customer surge on platforms like Facebook and X, Safaricom confirmed the system challenges and apologized for the repeated technical hitch, assuring the public that resolving the issue was a top priority.
In one response, the company wrote: “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.
The frustration surrounding the outage was evident in customer comments, such as one from Guyo Wario, who posted: “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.”
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.” The company further clarified that the disruption was not a scheduled maintenance event.
Successive disruptions and financial context
This outage is notably the second major disruption affecting the popular mobile savings and loan service within a two-week span. Users also experienced significant issues on October 30 and part of October 31, 2025.
Following that previous incident, which took several days for account reconciliation to complete, the company issued a statement:
“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.”
Launched in 2012 as a partnership between Safaricom and NCBA Bank (then Commercial Bank of Africa), M-Shwari functions as a digital micro-lending and savings platform built on the M-PESA framework.
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These service disruptions come on the heels of Safaricom reporting a recent 14.4% decline in M-Shwari revenue for the Half-Year ended September 2025, which the company partially attributed to service disruptions.
Despite the technical challenges, the platform still reported a 17.6% rise in active customers (reaching 7.4 million), underscoring continued high demand. As of the full year 2025, M-Shwari had disbursed loans totaling Ksh96.4 billion ($748 million).
