Everything the program does, in plain language: the six ways you earn, what a point is actually worth, how your Trust Score works, what happens when something goes wrong, and what the bank can and cannot see. Written so a customer can read it and so branch and contact-centre staff can answer from it.
You earn for banking normally — no spending you would not have done anyway. Every reward can be traced: you can see which rule paid it, what it was calculated from, and why. And how you bank builds a Trust Score that changes what credit costs you, which is something no points balance anywhere can do.
Root & Rise is built into your HBL Microfinance Bank app. There is nothing to join and no card to collect. From the moment you use the app to pay, transfer or check in, you are in it.
It gives you three different things, and it is worth knowing which is which:
Earned by doing things. Spent in the marketplace or against a bill. They expire.
Real money, credited the moment a transaction happens. Nothing to claim, never expires.
Not a reward. A record of how you bank, which changes what credit costs you.
Points and cashback are nice. The Trust Score is the part that can change your life — a customer with no borrowing history and two years of punctual bill payments through the app is invisible to a traditional credit check and perfectly legible to this one.
| Way | What you do | What you get | Costs you |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lifting your limit | Clear Level 0 — one-time verification | 500 points, once | Nothing |
| Cashback | Pay by QR, card or bill through the app | Cash, instantly, 0.3–1.4% by tier | Nothing extra |
| Daily habits | Check in, keep a streak | 1 point a day, bonuses at 7 and 30 | Nothing — free action |
| Fraud quiz | Answer two questions | 2 points a correct answer | Nothing — free action |
| Moments | Any qualifying transaction over PKR 100 | A chance reward, up to once a day | Nothing extra |
| Campaigns | Whatever the offer says, when one is running | Extra points on top of the normal amount | Nothing extra |
Some transactions earn nothing — cash-out at an agent, for example, and top-ups below the minimum ticket. If a transaction earned nothing, the app will tell you it was excluded by rule rather than leaving you to guess whether something broke. That is not the same as losing points, and it is always shown.
A point is worth up to Rs. 0.35. The exact rate depends on what you spend it on, and the app shows you the rate before you confirm — never after.
| Spend it on | Points | You get | Per point |
|---|---|---|---|
| A bill — any biller | 1,000 | Rs. 350 | Rs. 0.35 |
| Fuel voucher | 1,500 | Rs. 500 | Rs. 0.33 |
| Mobile top-up | 600 | Rs. 200 | Rs. 0.33 |
| Grocery credit | 1,000 | Rs. 300 | Rs. 0.30 |
| A literacy session for someone else | 1,400 | One session | — |
The plainest advice in this guide: if you only want the most value, pay a bill with your points. It is the best rate and it also happens to be the thing that helps your Trust Score, because paying bills on time is one of the behaviours the score is built from. There is no catch in that sentence.
Minimum redemption is 200 points. Points expire 18 months after you earn them.
Open the app and check in: one point, every day, for doing nothing but showing up. Consecutive days build a streak, and the streak pays bonuses — a small one every seven days and a larger one at thirty.
Two questions, two points a correct answer, and an explanation whether you get it right or wrong. The questions are real scenarios: someone calling from "the bank" asking for your MPIN, a prize that needs a fee to claim, an agent offering to complete a transaction for you.
This is the one layer where the reward is genuinely a side effect. Customers who take the quiz report fewer fraud losses. The points are there to get you to read it.
The bank will never ask for your MPIN or an OTP — not by call, not by SMS, not at a branch, not ever. A real prize never costs money to claim. And an agent never needs your PIN to complete anything.
On a qualifying transaction over PKR 100 you may win a Moment — an immediate reward revealed there and then, at most once a day. Your tier changes the rate at which you win.
Two things the app tells you honestly. A Moment is funds received, so the standard two-hour hold on debits applies before you can spend it — the app says so as it reveals the reward, not afterwards. And once today's Moment has fired, the app says so plainly rather than letting you keep transacting in hope. The cap is there so the program cannot be farmed, which is what keeps it affordable for everyone.
Cashback is money, not points. It lands in your balance at the moment the transaction is authorised. There is nothing to claim, nothing to redeem and no expiry.
| Tier | Cashback | Eligible on |
|---|---|---|
| Seed | 0.3% | QR merchant payments and debit card at POS at full rate; bill payments at half rate. Not on P2P transfers, top-ups or agent cash-out. |
| Sprout | 0.5% | |
| Root | 0.8% | |
| Harvest | 1.1% | |
| Legacy | 1.4% |
There is a minimum transaction of PKR 100 and a monthly cap of PKR 400 a customer. The cap is published rather than hidden: it affects a small number of very heavy users and it is what keeps the rate sustainable for everyone else.
Your Trust Score is built from how you bank. Nothing else. It is recalculated weekly and you can see every input in the app, with the weight each one carries.
| What counts | Why it counts |
|---|---|
| Paying bills and repayments on time | The single strongest signal that you will repay a loan. Carries the most weight. |
| Transacting regularly | A working account looks different from a dormant one. |
| Keeping a balance | Money held, even a small amount, is evidence of resilience. |
| How long you have banked with us | Time cannot be gamed, which is why it belongs. |
| Dispute history | Considered, and openly stated rather than hidden. |
Points. Streaks. Quiz answers. Campaign rewards. Redemptions. How often you open the app. None of it touches your Trust Score. If playing a game could raise your score, the score would be worthless as a credit signal — and then it could not do the one thing it is for, which is get you better terms.
Your score places you on the tier ladder. Tiers change your cashback rate, your Moments rate, and what your score unlocks:
| Tier | From | What it unlocks |
|---|---|---|
| Seed | 300 | Baseline established |
| Sprout | 520 | Score visible; first pre-qualification signal |
| Root | 600 | Faster approval; modest limit increase |
| Harvest | 700 | Preferential loan pricing |
| Legacy | 760 | Best available pricing and limits |
A score can fall as well as rise. A missed repayment matters more than a month of good behaviour, and the app will tell you which input moved and why rather than showing you a number that changed for invisible reasons.
Open Rewards to see what your points buy. Tap an item and you get a review screen before anything is spent, showing four things: what you pay, what you get, the per-point rate, and your balance afterwards. It also names which batch of points will be used and who funds the reward.
Most rewards are paid for by a partner — the fuel network, the grocery chain, the telco — in exchange for your custom. Bill payment and the literacy session are funded by the bank. Vouchers land in your wallet in about a second and are valid for 30 days.
The purpose track lets you convert points into a literacy session for a small-business owner instead of something for yourself. The bank funds the rest of the session cost. Some customers use it for everything they earn; that is a legitimate way to use the program.
1,000 points pays Rs. 350 off any bill — the best rate available. It works slightly differently from a voucher, and the difference protects you.
Because the points were held rather than spent, a slow biller can never leave you with neither the points nor the payment.
Points last 18 months from the day you earn them. Your balance is not one number — it is several batches, each earned in a different month with its own expiry date. Open Points statement from the Rewards tab to see them all.
Points are always spent oldest first. This is in your favour, not the bank's: it means a redemption this month uses up the batch closest to expiring, before it can lapse. You do not have to manage it.
You will be warned twice — thirty days out and seven days out — and the second warning will reach you by SMS if a push notification cannot. If your phone number has changed, update it; undelivered expiry warnings are the most common reason points lapse.
Every message is written in English, Urdu and Roman Urdu before it can be sent, and you receive it in the language you choose. Set it under the menu, in Messages & language.
Open any message and you can see why you got it: which notification it was, and whether it counted against your monthly limit. Marketing messages are capped at six a month. Two kinds never count and can never be switched off:
You can turn each channel on or off separately. Push costs the bank nothing, so most things go there; SMS is used only when push cannot reach you; WhatsApp is off unless you turn it on.
A Level 0 account is capped at Rs. 25,000 a day. That cap also caps you out of much of this program, which is why clearing it is rewarded once with 500 points.
Three steps: confirm your CNIC details, complete biometric verification at any agent or franchise, and claim the bonus. Two honest notes. Registering a new device triggers a standard two-hour hold on debits — the bonus is yours immediately, but the hold applies, and the app tells you so before you finish rather than after. And your daily limit changes the moment verification clears, not when the bonus posts.
Tap Something not right? on the home screen. Pick the closest description — points that did not arrive, a redemption not delivered, an award you do not understand, or something else. You get a reference and a first response within four hours.
We run the trace on your account first. It shows which rule fired, what it used, and the arithmetic. Then one of three things is true, and we tell you which: the rule paid correctly and we explain it; the rule did not apply and we show you why; or the fault was ours, in which case it is corrected by hand with two signatures and you keep the points. You can read the whole history of your request in the app, including who approved the correction.
Everything you raise appears under Your requests on the home screen — open one and you get its full history: what you told us, what we found, what we did and who approved it. Resolved requests stay there rather than disappearing, so you can go back to one months later.
You can also reach us on 0800-42563 or 0800-34778, or at any branch. Raising it in the app is usually faster, because the trace is already attached.
Do I have to spend more to earn?
No. Checking in and the quiz are free, and cashback and Moments come from transactions you were going to make anyway. Any offer asking you to spend more is a campaign, clearly labelled as one, and optional.
Will collecting points get me a loan?
No — and anyone who tells you otherwise is wrong. Points and your Trust Score are separate on purpose. Paying bills on time through the app is what moves the score.
Why did that transaction earn nothing?
Some transaction types are not eligible — agent cash-out, for instance — and very small amounts fall below the minimum. Tap the transaction and the app will say which rule excluded it. Excluded is not the same as lost.
My streak broke and it was not my fault.
You get one free freeze a month, applied automatically. If it broke anyway and you believe the app was at fault, raise it — we can see whether the failure was ours, and if it was, the streak is restored.
Can I give my points to someone else?
Not to another customer — transferable points are the easiest thing in a program like this to abuse. You can spend them on a literacy session for a small-business owner, which is a deliberate alternative.
Why can I not spend a Moment reward straight away?
It arrives as funds received, and a standard two-hour hold applies to those. It is a fraud control, it applies to everyone, and the app tells you as it happens rather than leaving you to discover it.
Someone called claiming to be from HBL and asked for my OTP.
That was not us. We never ask for your MPIN or an OTP by any channel. Hang up and report it on 0800-42563.
I stopped using the app for months. Have I lost everything?
Your points survive until their 18-month expiry, batch by batch, so some may still be there. Your streak restarts. Your Trust Score reflects the quieter period but recovers with regular use — tenure still counts in your favour.
Rates, thresholds and tier names in this guide are illustrative of the current build and remain subject to confirmation. Terms and conditions of the HBL Microfinance Bank account apply. Version 1.0 · August 2026.