Paga

The challenge

Currently, 80 percent of all Africans lack access to formal financial services. With 61 percent of Nigerians living on less than $1 per day, low-cost financial services serve as a key step towards entering the formal economy. Over 56 million adults in Nigeria have access to a mobile phone, but 57 percent of these adults remain un-banked. As Nigeria is a cash intensive economy, many Nigerians join informal savings schemes, which are expensive and insecure, or default to unreliable methods of transferring funds.

The innovation

Paga has developed a mobile payments/banking platform that, in its first phase, enables clients to transfer money or remit funds, purchase airtime and pay bills via a network of retail agents, mobile phones, or the Internet. The second phase of Paga’s offering will deliver branchless financial services (including savings, credit, and microinsurance) through strong partnerships with banks, microfinance institutions and micro-insurance providers.

The impact

Since their launch to the general public in 2011, Paga has processed over 1.6 million transactions worth more than NGN 17.9 billion ($115 million). Paga has more than 4 million users and over 2,700 agents in 150 communities across Nigeria.