This is in Kenya where Safaricom's M-Pesa is widely used for mobile money/payments. From the article:

> the app was developed by them in partnership with a Kenyan carrier, Safaricom. A spokesperson from Google told XDA that the app was developed to help Safaricom with their new “Lipa Mdogo Mdogo” (Pay Bit by Bit) financing plan which lets customers get an Android Go device with monthly financing. However, if the customer could not pay an installment after four days of its due date, Safaricom locks the device with this Google app.

Does the lock also prevent M-Pesa payments? That would effectively be a telco kill switch for digital money wallets.