FinTech: Nigerians acquire loans using mobile app

With more than half of Nigerians obtaining credit from informal sources, especially from family and friends, Paylater mobile app is revolutionizing credit acquisition by issuing instant loans up to one million naira to customers without seeing or speaking to them.

No collateral or paperwork is needed to obtain the loans using the app.

Mobile money is limited in Nigeria and may be lagging behind when compared with some of her peers, like Ghana in the West Africa as far as financial inclusion and fintech revolution happening across the globe are concerned.

Fintech companies like Paylater represent a tremendous opportunity to get formal banking services in the hands of consumers to provide the much needed liquidity for entrepreneurial investment, personal development, or unexpected expenses.

Presently, the World Bank in its global findex report estimated that, only about 40 per cent of Nigerians own accounts – 35 per cent financial institution accounts, four per cent owning both financial institution and mobile money account and one percent owning purely mobile money accounts. While in Ghana, 17 per cent of adults hold purely financial institution accounts, 22 per cent own both mobile money and financial institution accounts and 19 per cent have only financial institution accounts – culminating in 58 per cent of Ghanaian adults owning accounts.

The mobile app has recorded one million downloads on Playstore with over 800,000 registered users, across every Nigerian state. Paylater has provided credit to the tune of over an equivalent of $17 million so far in 2018. The technology platform has supplemented that loan growth with very strong early adoption of its bill payments and investment features as well.

With digital technology and advances in digital financial services identified as major drivers of financial inclusion worldwide, will Paylater be one of those advances that will make Nigeria’s financial sector more inclusive and bridge the 24 per cent financial inclusion gender gap ?

By Bismark Elorm Addo