JumiaPay Has Been Down For Some Customers In Kenya [Updated]

Update: WeeTracker earlier reported that JumiaPay was down for a week in Kenya. Later, Jumia clarified that the glitch is/was mainly with international cards and not with local cards. However, no such communication were received by international card customers intimating about the glitch

Jumia Pay, the online payment service of Africa’s biggest e-tailer, Jumia, has been down in Kenya for up to one week and counting.

At the moment, some* users are unable to make payments via cards on the platform. WeeTracker has confirmed this independently via Jumia’s customer support.

As per the customer support, Jumia’s payment gateway in Kenya has been halted due to what is understood to be an ongoing upgrade of the fraud protection system.

Oddly, Jumia has not delivered any communication on the matter. Despite the protracted nature of the problem, the e-tailer has curiously kept users out of the loop. There’s no indication whatsoever on the app that there is an issue with payments.

Jumia’s customer support confirmed that the problem has lingered for a week now and there is no definite timeline for the resolution of the issues bedeviling JumiaPay at the moment.

JumiaPay is originally Jumia’s in-house online payment gateway for processing payments for purchases on the e-commerce platform. The JumiaPay platform has since been expanded into an online payment service that caters to various kinds of payments from airtime/data purchase to utility payments.

It was when the company announced its Q2 2019 results last August that Jumia’s co-CEO, Sacha Poignonnec, first hinted at spinning JumiaPay into a standalone, robust payment service as part of restructuring efforts.

Since it was rocked by allegations of fraud shortly after listing on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), Jumia has gone about its business differently, pulling the plug on non-performing branches/verticals in Africa while pivoting beyond its core e-commerce business.

Last month, we reported that Jumia has forayed into mainstream logistics by opening up its vast delivery network to individuals and businesses. It was the latest in a series of moves seen over the past 10 months that suggest the e-tailer is increasingly looking beyond e-commerce for revenue generation and loss reduction.

In addition to spinning its in-house payment platform, JumiaPay, into a proper consumer fintech product, Jumia has since given up its Jumia Travel vertical to Travelstart, and moves have been made for Kenya’s ads space and the micro-lending segment in Nigeria as part of restructuring efforts.

For a company that is listed on the world’s largest stock exchange and one that is often a part of the big discussions around startup founding/funding in Africa, this is quite a glitch. An even bigger glitch is not bothering to notify customers.