Safaricom announced that over the next three weeks it will conduct a major upgrade of the popular M-Pesa platform, according to a press release from the company.

This will be the third major upgrade since M-Pesa's launch 10 years ago, and the first such upgrade since Safaricom migrated the platform to Kenya in 2015.

The new M-Pesa platform paves the way for Safaricom to roll out more features and enhancements on the service to the more than 26 million customers. Among the new features that customers can look forward to include M-Shwari and KCB M-Pesa implementation in the Safaricom app, according to the release.

"Ten years ago, we began the journey of M-Pesa by focusing on our customers' need to send money home. Since then, we have experienced tremendous growth as the platform has grown to provide even more value to the ecosystem. This upgrade paves the way for the next phase of M-Pesa and will enable the service deliver even more value for our customers and partners," Bob Collymore, CEO of Safaricom, said in a statement.

Following the upgrade, M-Pesa customers are set to benefit from an increase in the number of partners offering their services on the enhanced M-Pesa platform. This will be made possible through a new set of APIs that will simplify the process of integration into M-Pesa, cutting down the time it takes from weeks to a few days, or even hours.