The Microsoft outage Nigeria banks should note after Kenya was hit left banks there, among them the local arm of Nigeria's UBA, having to point clients to telephone numbers and WhatsApp once Microsoft's email service failed worldwide. It shows how much everyday work depends on a single overseas cloud provider, and what happens when its email product goes down.
According to TechCabal, UBA Kenya blamed its disruption on Microsoft Outlook. It told customers to get in touch by telephone, through a WhatsApp number or via their own relationship managers. Equity Bank, Stanbic Bank Kenya and Standard Chartered Bank Kenya also warned their clients that email was out of action. None of these announcements mentioned any problem with payments.
What happened and when
Microsoft first acknowledged the problem at 8:54pm Kenyan time on Thursday, according to tech-ish. Its Microsoft 365 Status account on X said users in the Americas could not get into Exchange Online mailboxes. Thirteen minutes later, the warning was widened to users in any region.
Microsoft said some servers were failing automated health checks, which put overload on the remaining infrastructure, CNBC reported. The company later validated an alternative health check method that brought some servers back. It has said it has no evidence of malicious activity.
Reports of Outlook problems peaked globally at nearly 140,000 around 18:00 GMT on Thursday, Nairobi News reported, citing Downdetector. Microsoft's executive vice-president for Copilot, Agents and Platform, Charles Lamanna, apologised publicly on social media late on Thursday. He wrote: "We regret that today's outages caused disruptions for our customers, and we are working to address the issue," according to ABC News.
Which services broke and which did not
Microsoft's service health page listed 20 affected services, with Exchange Online as the common thread, tech-ish reported. Joining Teams calls and group chats mostly still worked, as did opening SharePoint files. Azure showed no issues.
The damage was mostly limited to email and the support channels built on it. I&M Bank told Kenyan customers its email was down because of a global Microsoft email outage, and gave a WhatsApp contact centre number and a phone line. Neither I&M nor Loop said its app, cards or payments were affected.
Kenyan Saccos were hit as well. According to Dawan Africa, they warned members of email disruption and asked them to visit offices or phone.
The Microsoft outage Nigeria banks cannot ignore
UBA's Kenyan unit lost email on a Friday when customers needed answers, and its fix was a phone line and a WhatsApp number. That is a sensible stopgap, but it is not a plan.
Banks elsewhere on the continent issued similar notices, BusinessDay reported. Stanbic Bank Zambia said it could not receive or respond to emails and that banking services remained fully available. Standard Bank Namibia issued a similar advisory.
BusinessDay argues that the outage strengthens the case for more comprehensive business continuity arrangements. It lists secondary email infrastructure, alternative virtual meeting platforms and offline access to critical documents. Nigerian lenders, insurers and firms that run on Microsoft 365 can ask a few direct questions:
- If email fails, which phone line or messaging channel do customers use, and is it staffed?
- Can relationship managers reach key clients without Outlook?
- Are critical documents available offline?
- Does the business have a second email route for urgent messages?
Beware of phishing during the outage
Customers have a part to play too. Sophos, the cybersecurity firm, warned that criminals often use high-profile outages to send phishing messages posing as the affected company or a bank, according to FinanceX Magazine. Staff should treat unexpected Microsoft or banking messages with caution.
In practice, that means being wary of any message that appears to explain the outage and asks you to click a link. Contact your bank only through channels you already know to be genuine, such as the number printed on your card or on its official website.
Recovery and what comes next
Microsoft's latest update, posted at 2:04pm Kenyan time on Friday, said recovery was complete across parts of its servers in the Asia Pacific region. The company said it was taking the same fix to other regions, and that some users might still see intermittent issues.
Delayed mail has a longer grace period than usual. Microsoft has extended its email timeout window to 48 hours, so a message sent on Thursday night keeps retrying until Saturday night. After that, it would bounce and need to be sent again.
Microsoft has said it will publish a full report on the root cause once the repair is finished. TechCabal pointed out that the failure follows several other Microsoft 365 interruptions this year, including ones in January and July. There was also an episode at the end of August in which many thousands of people could not get into their mailboxes.
For now, the lesson is practical. Payments and apps largely held up, but the channels customers use to ask questions did not. Nigerian institutions that depend on a single email provider would do well to test their fallback before they need it.
