Subscribers to the M-Pesa mobile money service were among those impacted when Kenyan mobile operator Safaricom suffered a network outage over the weekend (24-25 September), according to Mobile Money Africa. The fault appears to have been caused by a cut to the operator's backbone fibre optic cable which was subsequently repaired and normal service resumed. Other services affected included voice and data. Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore issued a statement in which he assured subscribers that money held in the M-Pesa system was safe despite the network crash.  

The operator has suffered technical problems with the M-Pesa service before in recent months. Service was disrupted during a systems upgrade in April and from another cable break the operator suffered at the end of last year.