Safaricom is currently rolling out a major expansion to its financial ecosystem with the launch of Ziidi Trader. But for some M-PESA app users, the day is starting with a frustrating loop of “ghost” update notifications.
Some Safaricom users on the stable channel are receiving an “Update Required” prompt when opening the M-PESA app. The notification, which warns of an “OUTDATED APP VERSION,” blocks access to the app until the user taps the green “UPDATE” button.
However, users are reporting that tapping the button leads to nothing. Yes, there are no new updates available.
The ‘ghost’ update
The issue appears to be affecting users on the standard, stable version of the app. Despite the app insisting it is outdated, there is no new version to download. This leaves users trapped in a loop: open the app, get forced to update, go to the Play Store, see no update, open the app again, repeat.
Complicating matters, Safaricom’s beta channel did receive an update yesterday, February 9, bumping the version to 4.0.8. However, the “ghost” notifications are hitting users who are not enrolled in the beta program. Switching between beta and stable channels didn’t trigger the update notification for me, suggesting a staggered server-side rollout that has gone out of sync with the actual Play Store release.
When reached for comment on social media, Safaricom support appeared unaware of a specific deployment issue, suggesting generic troubleshooting steps like switching between Wi-Fi and mobile data or asking for mobile numbers to look into it.
The timing of this glitch is almost certainly tied to today’s official launch of Ziidi Trader at the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE).
Ziidi Trader is Safaricom’s new wealth management feature that allows M-PESA users to buy and sell NSE shares directly within the app. While the core code for this feature was included in the January 26 update, the “activation” seems to be happening today to coincide with the launch event.
Safaricom probably pushed a server-side trigger to enable the Ziidi Trader interface, but arguably set the “minimum required version” flag too high before the stable update was actually approved and propagated by Google’s Play Store.
Ziidi Invest & Save outage
Adding to the growing pains of Safaricom’s “wealth” ambitions, users of the existing Ziidi Invest & Save (MMF) product are also facing downtime today.
Multiple users have reported being unable to access their funds or view their balances. Safaricom has acknowledged this specific outage, stating:
"We are aware of the issue and are working to resolve it promptly. Our sincere apologies for inconveniences caused."
This is a classic case of “launch day jitters” meeting “deployment desync.” But if you are stuck in the loop, there is unfortunately little you can do but wait for the Play Store to catch up and propagate the new version to your device.
