Background:
I'm from Kenya and I use Mpesa all the time far more than bank cards. I use it to pay for stuff. One way that works is I input my phone number in the online checkout form and it should initiate what they call STK push on my phone with the line inside. I should input my Mpesa pin to authorize the payment. That works well on my Android and the basic "button" phone. In the iphone, I get issues.
Issue:
I was checking out at a supermarket, and on the line I should get a prompt and input the pin and that is it. I get the prompt, input the pin. The POS should update in a second or two and I should get a confirmation message. Nothing happens. Looking at the network bar, I realize the network bar is gone for one SIM. I don't know which.
Airplane mode on off and try again the checkout. After inputing the pin, nothing happens. Then someone hints that iphones don't work with STK push. I had to go out, withdraw from an agent so I could pay for my stuff. 30 minutes wasted.
Today I'm eating at a restaurant that has the same mpesa check-out. Same issue. I had to send money normally to an employee, who offers to go get cash for me at a fee since the nearest mpesa agent or ATM was kilometers away. Time and money wasted.
Now this evening I'm chilling somewhere and there is an internet hotspot where you pay with mpesa and use internet with hourly rates. Tried to pay. Nothing happens after sending the pin. Well, something happens - there is a network outage on one SIM - network bars greyed out. I have to airplane on and off or wait a few minutes for it to come back on again.
Trying to pay for Spotify premium, same issue.
Tried asking people with iphones and it seems to be a common issue. It works sometimes, most times not. At first I thought it is because I'm using beta version of iOS. Pretty much everyone with iphone is complaining. In fact iPhone people are walking around with a backup 'mpesa' phone because of this issue. I haven't seen an answer in the discussions. Maybe people in the rest of the world haven't experienced this because this kind of payment is not very popular elsewhere.
I would like to know if this is a bug or is it some settings we missed to make it work. Thank you.