KCB M-Pesa Outage: Maintenance Overruns Its Window as Customers Report Money Stuck in Failed TransfersKCB M-Pesa Outage: Maintenance Overruns Its Window as Customers Report Money Stuck in Failed Transfers

The overrun matters because the service is used for short-term credit and savings by households and small traders, and some customers say money has been debited without arriving. Customers have been unable to withdraw, deposit, check savings balances, manage loans or transfer funds between KCB M-Pesa and M-Pesa.

What KCB has said

KCB announced on 23 October that KCB M-Pesa would be unavailable for about 10 hours, from 8 PM on 24 October to 6 AM on 25 October, and urged customers to complete urgent transactions beforehand. By mid-afternoon on 25 October the work was still underway.

In a statement on 25 October, the bank said its technical team was working to restore normal service as soon as possible. It apologised for the inconvenience and linked the disruption to ongoing system upgrades. No restoration time was given.

Customers report missing money

Some customers say money was deducted from their KCB M-Pesa accounts during withdrawals to M-Pesa wallets but did not appear in their M-Pesa balances. Some say they waited 12 to 24 hours for the funds to be returned or credited, and a few say they waited up to 48 hours. Mwenendo has not independently verified individual cases, and neither KCB nor Safaricom has published the number of affected users or the value involved.

One customer posted on KCB's X account asking why maintenance had lasted more than eight hours and demanding access to their funds.

A week of interruptions

The overrun follows repeated interruptions between 19 and 22 October. Safaricom Care publicly acknowledged a system issue affecting KCB M-Pesa services on 20 October and said its teams were working to resolve it.

Mobile credit has become a bigger part of everyday finance in Kenya. As Mwenendo earlier reported, Safaricom has extended overdraft credit to more than one million micro-merchants, and the platform now carries a growing share of small-business cash flow.

Mwenendo also reported on how new M-Pesa tools for shop staff are being built around shop owners, which raises the stakes when a partner service goes offline.

What customers can do

Customers who were debited without a credit should keep the M-Pesa transaction message and reference, report the case through KCB's official support channels and Safaricom Care, and avoid repeating a failed transaction. Neither institution has said whether the Central Bank of Kenya has asked for an incident report, and Mwenendo will update this story when service is restored or a compensation process is announced.