Kenyan banks turned to WhatsApp and call centres on Friday after a global Microsoft outage cut off their email, forcing several of the country’s biggest lenders to reroute customer queries.
Equity Bank and UBA Kenya asked customers to call or use WhatsApp. Stanbic Bank Kenya, part of South Africa’s Standard Bank Group, directed customers to its Voice Branch call centre or their relationship managers. Standard Chartered Bank Kenya told customers by text that its email service was unavailable.
Loop, NCBA Group’s digital bank, went further, saying both its email and in-app support channels were down and directing customers to phone lines and social media. None of the notices mentioned problems with payments.
Insurers also felt the strain, as Old Mutual Kenya apologised to customers after losing access to email. APA Insurance lost email as well as Microsoft’s SharePoint and OneDrive, according to an email seen by TechCabal.
The disruption shows how heavily Kenya’s financial industry relies on a single foreign cloud provider for the basic tools of daily operations, even as lenders move almost all customer business to digital channels.
Microsoft first said it was investigating mailbox problems shortly before 1 PM New York time on Thursday. That was 9 PM in Nairobi, the hour when Old Mutual’s Kenyan unit says its email went down.
