M-Pesa Africa on Wednesday unveiled a Shared Service Operations Centre (SSOC) in Nairobi that will oversee service operations and offer technical support in five countries.

The center operations will include incident monitoring and resolution, managing platform changes and upgrades, deployment of new features and capacity management, and coordination with technical vendors.

Safaricom CEO Peter Ndegwa says M-Pesa SSOC will enable M-Pesa Africa to deliver a higher service quality and improved platform reliability as it expands to more markets and add more products.

“For 16 years, M-Pesa has been at the core of our purpose to transform lives by using technology to connect customers to different opportunities,” said Ndegwa.

The M-Pesa SSOC will support M-Pesa operations in Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Mozambique, Lesotho, Ghana and other markets the service will expand to.

Previously, M-Pesa platform operations in the five markets were handled in several points in Africa and Europe and the new center brings the entire platform to a single point in Kenya.

“Financial services remain a priority for us as we drive financial and digital inclusion on the continent,” said Vodacom Group CEO Shameel Joosub.

He added: “The launch of this Operations Centre is an important milestone and testament to our commitment to continue delivering innovative and cost-effective personal finance and business solutions that were previously difficult and cumbersome to acquire – further supporting us in connecting the next 100 million African customers.”


M-Pesa Africa has pumped more than $2 million, an equivalent of Sh262.1 million, into the new center as part of the company’s transition to a platform that is digital and cloud-based.

The scalable new platform offers a range of products and services in all markets, supports integration of new products and services and leverages emerging technologies including Big Data and Artificial Intelligence.


“The Shared Service Operations Centre strengthens our position as Africa’s largest fintech and digital ecosystem, bringing us closer to our vision of one M-Pesa, providing one platform and unified operations across all our markets,” said M-Pesa Africa MD Sitoyo Lopokoiyit.

He added, “It will enable us to deliver increased reliability, a more robust platform, faster upgrade and change management as we transition to a fully digital ecosystem connecting customers and businesses across the continent.”