There’s a weird thing that has been happening over the past few days: M-Pesa menus popping up on mobile phones all by themselves. Some requiring a user’s input and others, like ghosts, just appearing and disappearing even without anyone’s intervention.
Have you been hacked?
Is your device okay?
Is your money in M-Pesa safe?
Does somebody else have access to your M-Pesa account?
Is somebody else using your M-Pesa?
The answers to the above five questions are no, yes, yes, no, and, another strong NO!
I will explain.
There’s an announcement that Safaricom made last month as many of us were still basking in the glories of the new year or the fact that we were among the chosen few that hadn’t resumed working the previous week and still had a few days to finish our holiday hangovers. So, we might’ve missed it. Heck, we didn’t even cover it ourselves.
The announcement from Safaricom in question is one that involved a new feature that was making its way to M-Pesa: M-Pesa agent store numbers.
Now, there’s nothing special about those store numbers other than the fact that they are an added layer of security for everyone transacting through M-Pesa agents anywhere in the country. It’s just a number that each one of the agents has been issued and which you key in right after keying in the agent number. If the system determines that the two numbers are for the same agent then one can get whatever service they were after, otherwise, the transaction is declined.
Here’s the background for the implementation of the M-Pesa agent store number: there have been enough instances where one has transacted with an agent located many kilometres away from the one they intended. How did that happen? Well, they probably keyed in a wrong agent number. Just the slip of one number and the lack of confirmation by one before completing the transaction process on their end could lead to this. In other cases, it could be fraudsters. To end all of that, Safaricom introduced the M-Pesa agent store number.
Now, for the agent store number to be part of the steps you go through when transacting at an M-Pesa agent’s, that has to show up on whatever mechanism you are using to transact, right? The M-Pesa apps – both for individuals and for businesses – have already been updated. The *334# shortcode has already been updated. Now, what about the SIM toolkit that many use to conduct such transactions? It also needs updating.
Now, that need to update the SIM toolkit is what has led to Safaricom sending the update over-the-air so that it can update automatically. The M-Pesa pop-up you get on your mobile phone asking for your input, for those that are able to see it, is to validate that update process. Easy.
The ability to do this is part of the upgrades that the M-Pesa system has received over the years that allows Safaricom to issue such updates without any downtime.
In case you haven’t received the SIM toolkit update, you can actually just go ahead and manually update your device. No need to wait for a surprise pop up.
Safaricom has outlined how to do so in a quick video:
We have introduced store numbers for all M-PESA agent withdrawals to prevent accidental transactions. Check out the steps below on how to update. pic.twitter.com/SKmOp4c1t2
— Safaricom PLC (@SafaricomPLC) February 9, 2023
In case the video is not enough (or you’re not on Twitter and, for some reason or the other, can’t play it on this page), here’s a quick rundown:
Open the SIM toolkit and follow these steps
Then wait to see this – it should take just a couple of minutes – press ok and…
That’s it, you’re done!
