PAYGo at a crossroads
PAYGo solar has reached millions, but challenges with credit and repayment are raising costs for the customers least able to pay.
- Report
- Renewable energy
- Sub-Saharan Africa H2R
- 2026
Executive summary
Over the past decade, PAYGo solar has extended energy access to millions of households excluded from traditional finance.
But as the sector moves into harder-to-reach markets, a structural tension is becoming harder to ignore: integrating sales and credit within a single organization creates incentive conflicts that weaken credit discipline, drive up default rates, and ultimately raise prices for the customers least able to absorb them.
This paper, produced jointly by MAF Lab and Acumen, explores whether separating credit from sales and distribution could improve affordability, repayment performance, and customer protection and what early pilots in Somalia, Malawi, and other sub-Saharan African countries are beginning to show.
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