KCB M-Pesa users still chasing failed withdrawals after weekend upgrade overran

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Some KCB M-Pesa customers are still waiting for money that left their accounts during failed withdrawals, days after a weekend system upgrade ran well past its planned window.

KCB had told customers on October 23 that KCB M-Pesa would be offline from 8pm on Friday, October 24, to 6am on Saturday, October 25, for scheduled maintenance, and asked them to finish urgent transactions before then. The service did not come back on time. Through Saturday the bank kept telling customers on X that the maintenance was “still underway” and that its technical team was working to restore normal service, blaming the delay on system upgrades. One customer complained that the outage had passed eight hours.

Restored, but some balances still wrong

By Saturday afternoon KCB’s customer care desk was telling users that the downtime was over and that they should try the service afresh. The complaints did not stop there. Several customers said that once the platform was back, money they had tried to move to their M-Pesa wallets was missing, with KCB M-Pesa balances showing less than expected, or even zero, while nothing had arrived on M-Pesa.

On Monday, October 26, KCB Care replied to one such customer that the funds would be refunded to their KCB M-Pesa account. The bank has not said how many customers were affected, how much money is waiting to be reversed, or how long refunds will take.

A second disruption in a week

The weekend outage followed repeated interruptions between October 19 and 22. In that episode customers reported withdrawals from KCB M-Pesa to M-Pesa that were debited but never credited. Safaricom, which runs the M-Pesa side of the product, acknowledged on October 20 that “a system issue” was affecting KCB M-Pesa services. Some users said they waited 12 to 24 hours, and in a few cases up to 48 hours, for the money to come back.

KCB M-Pesa is one of the country’s most used mobile savings and loan products, and many people keep emergency savings and short-term KCB M-Pesa loans on it. Two outages in a week, both with money stuck in transit, will add pressure on the bank to explain what went wrong. KCB Group shareholders are also watching the lender closely ahead of its interim dividend payment.

What affected customers should do

• Don’t retry straight away. Check both your KCB M-Pesa and M-Pesa balances before trying the same withdrawal again, so a stuck transaction doesn’t turn into a double debit.
• Check your statement. Confirm whether the transfer went through, is pending or was reversed. Our guide on the M-Pesa mini statement shows how.
• Keep the evidence. Save the confirmation SMS, transaction code, amount and time.
• Report it. Raise it with KCB through its official customer care channels, or call Safaricom on 100 from a Safaricom line, and quote the transaction code.

If you are comparing mobile loan costs after the outage, our mobile loan calculator sets KCB M-Pesa against M-Shwari and MCo-opCash.

Frequently asked questions

Is KCB M-Pesa working now?

KCB said on Saturday, October 25, that the downtime had ended and customers could use the service again, though some are still chasing failed withdrawals.

Will I get my money back from a failed KCB M-Pesa withdrawal?

KCB has told affected customers that the money will be refunded to their KCB M-Pesa account. It has not given a timeline, so keep your transaction code and follow up with customer care if the refund doesn’t show.