Editor's Review

Airtel confirmed that Safaricom's Mpesa services were down on Saturday.

Mpesa is currently experiencing a downtime.

Transactions are delaying with customers registering their frustration with it.

Its users on Saturday, August 18, took to social media to decry challenges that have hindered transactions.

In a statement, Airtel Kenya, a rival to Safaricom, and which has integrated the Mpesa products into its mobile money services, confirmed there was a system issue leading to the transaction challenges endured by customers.

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"Airtel Money payment to Mpesa Buy Goods and Paybills, as well as sending money to Mpesa and receiving money from Mpesa, is currently impacted by a system issue which the partner is actively working to resolve.

A customer walking past an Mpesa outlet.

We apologize for the inconvenience and we will keep you updated once the partner restores these services," said Airtel.

Transactions done from banks would also not go through owing to the hitch.

The money institutions notified its customers of the downtime and that efforts were underway to restore things back to normal.

"Dear customer, we are experiencing delays on all Mpesa transactions. We will advise once this is fully restored by our partners," NCBA Bank told its clientele.