M-PESA's Homecoming
This weekend, Safaricom is moving their servers, which were in Germany, to Kenya. They’ve been harping this on their social channels as #mpesacomeshome. From their press release:
Early last year, we announced plans to migrate the M-PESA platform to Kenya. We can now confirm that faster transactions, improved stability and added functionality on M-PESA is a dream coming to life: M-PESA is coming home!
Here is what you will enjoy from the new M-PESA system:
- Enhanced system stability due to reduced points of failure
- Ability to enjoy more products and services on the platform
- Faster resolution of system outages due to local support
- Higher transaction processing capability
- Easier integration into M-PESA for third parties
- Leverages global best practice in technology security, business continuity and redundancy
- Instant monitoring of systems
- Enhanced stability translates to reduced downtimes for subscribers
We are on track to bring the system home by this weekend…
I don’t know how this benefits anyone other than Safaricom. They claim that it will increase transaction times but I think it’ll just be shaving a couple of milliseconds of the time. There’s not been a complaint on that front as far as I know.
There has been a quiet hope amongst developers that this may lead to the much fabled M-PESA API allowing simpler monetisation of apps built for the local market but Safaricom has been playing coy with timelines so I’m not holding my breath on that.
Speaking of monetisation using mobile money, there’s one cool solution, a work around really, called chowder. More on that in a future post. Peace!!!