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There was a time when Bonga Points were all about free airtime, discounted smartphones, shopping vouchers, or that occasional reward you had forgotten existed. In fact, I bought my first smartphone back in 2013 using Bonga Points. But now, the government wants them to help recover Hustler Fund loans.

In a move that has gone live quietly, borrowers can now use their accumulated Safaricom Bonga Points to repay outstanding Hustler Fund loans. The new repayment option marks yet another collaboration between Kenya’s biggest telecommunications company and the government, this time in an effort to improve collections from the State-backed lending scheme.

If you’ve ever wondered whether those Bonga Points sitting in your account would one day become a financial asset, this probably wasn’t the use case you had in mind.

Repaying Hustler Fund using Bonga Points

Borrowers can now dial *254#, navigate to the Hustler Fund menu, and choose the repayment option using Bonga Points. The Financial Inclusion Fund (Hustler Fund) has reportedly been notifying borrowers via SMS that they can now settle outstanding loans using Safaricom’s loyalty rewards programme.

At the current conversion, five Bonga Points are equivalent to KES 1, meaning someone looking to repay a KES 500 Hustler Fund loan would need roughly 2,500 Bonga Points. Safaricom, however, maintains that the value of Bonga Points isn’t fixed and varies depending on historical redemption patterns.

Why now?

That’s perhaps the bigger question. On paper, the government says it’s simply making repayments more convenient.

"The idea is that if there are other convenient options for borrowers to repay, then we should make them available," Hustler Fund CEO Henry Tanui told Business Daily.

And to be fair, that’s a reasonable explanation. Giving borrowers more repayment options could genuinely improve convenience for those who have accumulated enough Bonga Points but may not have cash on hand. The same report also notes that the Hustler Fund is grappling with a 15% default rate, equivalent to KES 12.5 billion as of March. It also says the Treasury has significantly reduced funding for the programme as the government pushes to make the fund more self-sustaining instead of relying on taxpayer allocations.

Viewed through that lens, it’s difficult not to see the Bonga Points option as part of a broader recovery strategy. After all, why introduce an entirely new repayment channel if collections were already going exactly as planned?

Billions of shillings in Bonga Points

One figure from the Business Daily report stood out to me. As of March 2026, Safaricom customers collectively held Bonga Points worth an estimated KES 3.6 billion. That’s a substantial pool of dormant value. For years, many subscribers have let their points accumulate with little idea of what to redeem them for. Now, those same points can be redirected toward settling government-backed loans.

Whether borrowers see that as a useful option or an unfortunate trade-off will likely depend on their individual circumstances.

Safaricom’s growing role in government services

This latest partnership also reinforces something we’ve been seeing for years: Safaricom increasingly sits at the centre of many government-facing digital services. Whether it’s tax payments, government collections, digital identity integrations, mobile money infrastructure, or now facilitating another avenue for Hustler Fund repayments, the telco’s ecosystem continues to become intertwined with public service delivery.

That prominence has also placed Safaricom under greater public scrutiny. In recent years, the company has faced criticism from some activists and civil society groups over issues including network shutdown concerns, surveillance allegations, and its role during periods of political unrest. Safaricom has consistently denied unlawful involvement, and some of those matters have found their way into Kenyan courts.

Still, every new government partnership inevitably revives the debate over just how central Safaricom has become to the lives and finances of millions of Kenyans.

A convenience feature or a sign of deeper problems?

It’s worth noting that borrowers are not being forced to surrender their Bonga Points. Using them to repay Hustler Fund loans is simply another repayment option. But it’s equally fair to ask why this option has arrived now.

By March this year, the Hustler Fund had disbursed KES 83 billion, with KES 71 billion repaid. The scheme has also attracted scrutiny from the Auditor-General, who flagged weaknesses in loan verification and customer records. Perhaps this is exactly what the government says it is—a convenient repayment alternative.

Or perhaps it’s another indication that recovering outstanding Hustler Fund loans has become important enough that every available repayment channel, including billions of shillings sitting in Kenyans’ Bonga Points accounts, is now worth tapping.