David;

 

As I said earlier, I always access my numbers directly from sim whenever im doing transaction on mpesa, I never type. So when they insisted that they are giving this "new" facility to subscribers, I though "these people are a joke and don't know what they are doing". The only thing I noted they added are "NEXT" after every 5 contacts, as opposed to previously when all contacts showed up. They better go to the two Kenyan guys that innovated Mpesa and ask them for support and how to add functionality.

 

Obopay aka YUcash, Orange Money and Airtel Money are far away in competition in terms of functionality and ease of use, and when people and especially developers discover that, when we "discover" we can do online M-payments on other platforms excepts M-PESA, then the great demise will begin. Safaricom will die a natural death. M-payments are now closely tied to subscriber loyalty, and when people start using another M-payments provider, they will move kabisa. They better innovate, they better copy paste faster before we grow weary. Kenyans are weary of sleaze, and Mpesa is sleaze as we speak. The great migration might begin anytime in two or three weeks now as people get crippling Mpesa downtimes in the Christmas high season.

 

I think if its Wikileaks hackers crippling Mpesa, we'll be patient, otherwise people are growing weary and the hackers will no longer pass for an excuse.

 

Peter