MPESA coming back home

Mobile money provider MPESA will be migrating from its current generation one platform to a more robust platform, generation 2. This means that the will have to move their servers from their current location in Germany and UK, to Kenya. Mpesa has frozen most of its services starting Thursday the 16th of April at midnight until Sunday the 19th of April 11 pm.
Some of the MPESA services that will not be accessible include:
-Changing MPESA pin
-Transacting on M-Shwari and M-Kesho
-Sending money to an unregistered person
-Registering for MPESA
-Activating new sim card
The new platform dubbed G2 is expected to make MPESA services more efficient. It will be able to process 900 transactions per second up from the previous 450 transactions per second done by G1.

Mpesa has one hundred and fifty thousand merchants on its system enabling customers to do easy C2B transactions. Mpesa hit the 7 billion shillings daily mark at the end of last year. Having started off as mobile money transfer service, MPESA has quickly adapted to the payments front with its aggressive LIPA NA MPESA product.
Launched in March 2007, MPESA is the most successful mobile money product in the world today. With an agent network of 80, 000 and 20 million users MPESA is definitely the most successful story ever told.

Hawalas and Money remittance providers on the spotlight in fight against terrorism

Thirteen money remittance providers have had the bank accounts frozen by the government of Kenya in a move stem organizations that are suspected to be financing terrorist activities. This comes in the wake of the Garissa university attack which claimed 148 lives.However the MRPs have come out strongly to defend themselves claiming that they are legal entities that are regulated by the Central Bank Of Kenya and give daily and monthly returns. The money remittance providers say they should not be mistaken for Hawalas which are informal establishments.
The Money Remittance Providers say they contribute 30% of all remittances from the diaspora which total to 300 million dollars.Hawalas are not regulated by the CBK. A person sending money through a Hawala only needs to make a phone call to the agent that is completing the transaction. The sender also provides a password to the sending agent and receiving agent. Once the receiving party provides the password needed, the transaction is completed.
KYC or know your customer is not duly followed by Hawalas but MRPs follow this process. For example for amounts exceeding 10,000 dollars one must provide source of funds and what it is intended to do. MRPs also have a maximum limit of 100,000 dollars that can be transacted by any given customer.
Investopedia defines Hawalas thus: Hawala is a method of transferring money without any actual movement. One definition from Interpol is that Hawala is "money transfer without money movement." Transactions between Hawala brokers are done without promissory notes because the system is heavily based on trust.