Kenyans who owe money on their Hustler Fund loans have a new way to clear their debt: Safaricom’s Bonga Points.
The Financial Inclusion Fund, better known as the Hustler Fund, has started texting borrowers to let them know they can use accumulated loyalty points to settle what they owe, either in full or in part.
How to Repay Hustler Fund Loan Using Bonga Points
Here are the steps to repay a Hustler Fund loan using Bonga Points:
- Dial *254# on the Safaricom line linked to the loan
- Select “Repay Loan” from the Hustler Fund menu
- Choose “Pay for Self” or “Pay for Other” depending on who the loan belongs to
- Enter the amount you want to repay, full or partial
- Select the Bonga Points option when payment methods appear
- Confirm the shilling amount and the number of points that will be deducted
- Enter your M-Pesa PIN to authorize the transaction
- Wait for the SMS confirmation showing amount repaid, points deducted, and remaining balance
The conversion rate right now works out to about five Bonga Points for every one shilling, so clearing a KES 500 loan would take roughly 2,500 points.
Safaricom has noted that this rate isn’t fixed and can shift depending on how a customer has redeemed points in the past.
According to Safaricom’s most recent annual report, customers were sitting on a combined KES 3.6 billion worth of Bonga Points as of March 2026, which gives the fund a large pool of potential repayments to tap into.
The Hustler Fund is dealing with a default rate of 15%, which comes to about KES 12.5 billion in unpaid loans as of March. Fund CEO Henry Tanui told Business Daily that the new option is already showing results, with KES 3 million recovered in just the first week.
He said the thinking behind the move is simple: give borrowers more ways to pay, and more of them will pay.
The push for better recovery also comes as government funding for the program has dried up. The Treasury has not allocated new money to the fund this financial year, a sharp change from when it launched with KES 20 billion in government backing.
That figure had shrunk to just KES 300 million by the end of the financial year in June 2026. With fresh capital no longer flowing in, the fund is leaning more heavily on getting borrowers to repay existing loans to stay afloat.
So far it has disbursed KES 83 billion since launch, and KES 71 billion of that has been recovered.
READ: How Hustler Fund Hustler Groups Work in Kenya
The fund has also faced criticism over how loans have been handled. An Auditor-General review found that more than 104,000 loans worth KES 116.5 million were given out to borrowers whose national ID details were missing from the system, pointing to gaps in how the fund verifies who it’s lending to.
Beyond accepting Bonga Points, the fund has also been encouraging borrowers to make small, regular payments toward their loans, part of an effort dubbed Lipa Polepole.
Keeping up a steady repayment history is tied to higher borrowing limits, giving borrowers an incentive to stay current even if they can only pay a little at a time.
