Inside Story!! Why MTN Uganda, Stanbic Bank Went Off All Day – Worse Coming As Ugandans Decide To Boycott South African Companies

Thousands of customers of MTN Uganda and Stanbic Bank experienced service interruptions on Saturday after both companies confirmed technical issues affecting some of their digital platforms.

The disruptions left several users unable to access key services, including MTN Mobile Money and Stanbic Bank’s digital banking channels, prompting a wave of complaints on social media.

One MTN customer, using the X handle @Goodluck_Shawn, reported that attempts to access Mobile Money through the *165# USSD code were unsuccessful.

“Hello @mtnug, your services appear to be down. Whenever I dial *165#, I get the message: ‘System is busy. Please try again later.’ This is preventing me from accessing mobile money services. Kindly look into the issue and let us know when it will be resolved,” the user posted.

In response, MTN Uganda acknowledged the disruption and assured customers that engineers were working to restore normal operations.

“Y’ello customer! Sorry about this. We are currently experiencing a temporary service interruption and are working to restore it as soon as possible. Our apologies for the inconvenience caused. Please bear with us,” the telecom company replied.

Around the same time, Stanbic Bank also confirmed experiencing technical difficulties after customers reported being unable to use its digital banking services.

Responding to one customer on X, the bank said: “Hello Daniel, we are currently experiencing network issues, and our digital channels are temporarily unavailable. Our support teams are working to restore services as quickly as possible. We apologize for any inconvenience caused.”

The simultaneous outages at two of Uganda’s largest financial and telecommunications institutions quickly attracted public attention online, with some social media users speculating about a possible connection between the incidents.

Some commentators pointed to the fact that both MTN Uganda and Stanbic Bank are subsidiaries of South African companies, raising questions over whether the disruptions could be linked, especially amid ongoing anti-migrant protests in South Africa.

However, neither MTN Uganda nor Stanbic Bank indicated that the outages resulted from a cyberattack or any external security incident. There is also no publicly available evidence suggesting that the two service interruptions were connected.

Technology analysts note that disruptions of this nature can result from various factors, including network failures, software glitches, infrastructure maintenance, power interruptions or problems affecting third-party service providers. They caution that simultaneous outages involving separate companies do not necessarily point to a common cause.

The incident nevertheless underscores the increasing reliance on digital services in Uganda, where millions of customers depend on mobile money and online banking platforms for daily financial transactions. Even short-lived service interruptions can significantly affect businesses, individuals and other economic activities.

By Saturday evening, both MTN Uganda and Stanbic Bank said their technical teams were actively working to restore full services, although neither company had provided a timeline for complete recovery or disclosed the exact cause of the disruptions.