CIO East Africa - Business Technology Leadership

Safaricom Limited has confirmed its new upgrade on the M-pesa platform that will allow its customers to make transactions directly from their phonebooks.The much awaited technology upgrade will be unveiled early March this year as the enabling software has already been developed and currently running on test.

According to Michael Joseph, the chief executive officer, Safaricom Limited, the new M-pesa system is expected to help the current 9million customers make transactions easily by not typing the names of the recipients manually but by getting them directly from their phonebook. “We have already acquired the software and it is currently on test .The new upgrade is expected to change the way M-pesa is working today.” Joseph said the new software will have to be integrated onto new SIM cards which will enable such transactions easily.

“The functionality of the new upgrade will only be supported by new SIM cards which have already acquired a new transformation through the new software since the current SIM cards cannot perform such direct processes. However, current SIM cards will have to be upgraded.”

It is noteworthy that customers have previously lost money by entering wrong phone numbers during a transaction. This will now be a thing of the past for all a customer will do is go directly to the phone book and key in the recipient.