- M-PESA upgrade is expected to deliver scalability, resilience and AI-powered innovation that will see platform process 6,000 transactions per second from the current 4500 Tps.
- Transformation positions M-PESA to meet the growing demands of Africa’s digital economy while preparing for future opportunities.
- New-look platform embeds artificial intelligence to aid in fraud detection, enable self-healing, and power real-time monitoring.
Tech giant Safaricom is set to undertake the most significant upgrade of its mobile financial services platform M-PESA, offering the fintech a new-look system that can process 6,000 transactions per second (Tps), up from the current 4,500 Tps.
The planned upgrade on Monday, 22nd September between 00:30am and 03:30am will be the biggest on the platform since 2015, marking a major milestone in the service’s 18-year journey of driving financial inclusion and digital transformation.
“During the maintenance, all M-PESA services including airtime purchase shall be temporarily unavailable. The timing of this maintenance activity has been planned to result in minimal inconvenience to our customers,” the telco stated in a notice.
In a market update on Friday, Safaricom said the upgrade will see the firm introduce Fintech 2.0, a next-generation core platform that is designed to strengthen resilience, expand capacity, and unlock advanced, AI-driven innovation.
With the power of Fintech 2.0. Safaricom will be transforming M-PESA to meet the growing demands of Africa’s digital economy while preparing for future opportunities.
New-look M-PESA platform anticipates tomorrow’s opportunities
“This upgrade is a bold investment in the future of M-PESA and reaffirmation of our commitment to innovation, resilience and customer trust. By moving to Fintech 2.0, we are unlocking a platform that not only scales to meet today’s demands but also anticipates tomorrow’s opportunities,” said Dr. Peter Ndegwa, Group CEO, Safaricom.
The new M-PESA Core will expand capacity from 4,500 to 6,000 transactions per second, with the potential to scale up to 12,000 transactions as demand grows. It will also introduce an active-active architecture across multiple hosting sites, guaranteeing higher resilience and minimal service interruption.
New-look platform embeds advanced artificial intelligence to strengthen fraud detection, enable self-healing, and power real-time monitoring. Its cloud-native foundation ensures higher performance, instant scalability, and faster deployment of new products.
Read also: Fresh M-PESA deal to enable remittances flow to Ethiopia from 40 countries
What Fintech 2.0 brings in M-PESA system
- Microservices: Adopting a microservices architecture to remain future-ready, allowing the delivery of new solutions and services to customers without disrupting the overall ecosystem.
- Cloud Infrastructure: Moving to scalable cloud infrastructure to support growth. While the system initially processed 100 transactions per second, it now handles up to 100 million transactions per day. Fintech 2.0 will increase current capacity from from 4,500 transactions per second (Tsp) to 6,000 Tsp.
- Artificial Intelligence: Leveraging AI to provide customized solutions for individual users, detect and prevent fraud before it occurs, and enhance transaction speed by detecting dips in performance.
Deliver smarter financial solutions
For the last 18 years, M-PESA has grown from a simple money transfer service into Africa’s largest fintech ecosystem, powering payments, savings, credit, insurance, remittances, and e-commerce. The launch of Fintech 2.0 is designed to sustain this growth and prepare the platform for the future, enabling Safaricom to deliver smarter, faster and more secure financial solutions to individuals and businesses alike.
With this migration, M-PESA is laying the foundation for the next generation of innovation. The upgrade ensures the platform remains robust enough to support Africa’s digital economy, while keeping its core promise, which is to make financial services simple, accessible and inclusive for all.
From serving about 17,000 customers when Safaricom started operations in 2000, the telco has grown, hitting a milestone of over 50 million subscribers in July, 2025, a landmark achievement which the firm attributes to innovation, resilience, and progress. For the last 18 year’s Safaricom’s M-PESA platform has evolved into a suite of capabilities, powering emerging needs in Africa’s digital financial ecosystem.
Read also: M-PESA and PayPal strike deal to redefine Kenya’s digital economy
