02 / Case study · Hustler Fund · M-PESA

Designed for anyone with a phone. From feature phone to smartphone, one product, every channel.

A national financial inclusion product, built to reach the 80% of Kenya's workforce that formal credit had never reached, designed in parallel across M-PESA mini-app and USSD so that no one was left out by their device.

Role
Design Lead · led 4 designers
Platform
M-PESA mini-app + USSD
Scope
Research · multi-channel · design ops
Status
Live since Nov 2022
Impact
23.3M opted in · KES 36.9B disbursed
"As a mama mboga, I want the Hustler Fund mini-app to be easy to use , so I can borrow, repay, and save for generations to come."

Hustler Fund is a Government of Kenya product offering affordable credit and micro-pension savings to Kenyans at the bottom of the pyramid, over 80% of the workforce, contributing more than a third of national GDP. Built on M-PESA rails by Safaricom, it's one of the largest financial inclusion deployments in Africa's history.

I led a team of four designers (two UI/UX, two customer journey experts) working alongside research, engineering, and business analysts. Our mandate: translate a national policy into a product that a mama mboga with a feature phone and a salaried employee with an iPhone could both use, confidently, on their first try, without training.

A full write-up of the multi-channel design work (parallel USSD and app journeys, research with first-time credit users, and the design ops behind shipping at national scale) is in progress.

23.3M
customers opted in
KES 36.9B
disbursed in personal loans
KES 1.8B
saved through the product
51,860
Vikundi (groups) registered
Full case study

Publishing soon. If you'd like the detailed write-up before it's public, get in touch.

kelvinmutiso1@gmail.com →
Let's talk

Always open to ambitious conversations.

Kelvin Mutiso · Nairobi, Kenya© 2026