PayPal to M-Pesa withdrawals now taking as little as 1 minute to process

Over 2 years ago, Safaricom made it easier for freelancers and just about anyone who relies on online international money transfer services to transact with relative ease by linking its popular mobile money platform, M-Pesa, with PayPal in what we would later come to know as services under its M-Pesa Global umbrella.

Since then, the PayPal-M-Pesa (and vice-versa) service has become popular. However, a major headache for many is the long and, at times, unpredictable wait before one receives funds they have transferred to their M-Pesa wallet from PayPal.

While M-Pesa’s link with PayPal has guaranteed many users short wait times – as little as 2 hours – when compared to what users were subjected to previously (using Equity Bank’s transfer system, for instance, one had to wait for at least 3 days before money could reflect in their account), things haven’t been straightforward. Transactions can take as long as that, 3 calendar days, based on the amounts being transacted. Lesser amounts have usually taken a shorter time compared to larger amounts.

Now, we are learning, the wait time before one receives that one magical text message, is even shorter!

Over the last few days, users have been reporting a much shorter wait time – just 1 or 2 minutes – when making withdrawals from PayPal to M-Pesa.

Neither Safaricom nor PayPal has confirmed this (the former still issues a standard “up to 3 calendar days” response to customer queries) but a quick sampling of the same has confirmed that it is, indeed, true.

While for transactions involving “little” amounts, at least in my case, transactions have taken under the 2-hour guaranteed timeline to be processed and completed, this is the first time that there is a guarantee of processing the same in under 2 hours. Better yet, it’s just a minute. At most two.

Still, for planning purposes, until such a time that this is confirmed as standard, you’re better off assuming the worst instead of raising your expectations only to be disappointed.

M-Pesa to PayPal top-ups can be done from the mySafaricom app while PayPal to M-Pesa withdrawals can be initiated from the app and completed on PayPal’s website through the browser.

Have you experienced the silent change in wait times for PayPal-M-Pesa withdrawals? What has your experience been like?