FIBR’s PAYGo Work

PAYGo is a workstream of the FIBR Project which worked with select PAYGo companies operations teams to execute pilots and sales experiments to field-test optimized product offerings, incentives, and interventions. In extending financial services to low-income customers, our engagement with these PAYGo companies focused on developing the foundational data analytics modules to improve customer segmentation and payment behavior, predicting and reducing churn, and understanding customer lifetime value.

Questions We Sought  to Answer about PAYGo:

  1. Data-Driven Financial Operations: How can data be used to drive more efficient customer selection and segmentation, post-sale interventions, and to offer better-customized services?
  2. Customer Payment Frictions: How can the model be adapted to markets with less mobile money, and how can customer payment frictions be reduced?
  3. Agent Network Management: What’s the right agent compensation model and how can data be used to improve agent engagement?
  4. Unlocking Local Capital: How can the sector’s growth be financed, and what’s the role of local capital?

 

Featured Insights

How financial institutions can deliver payment flexibility using lessons from PAYGo solar
PAYGo and Essential Services |

How financial institutions can deliver payment flexibility using lessons from PAYGo solar

Technology-enabled pay-as-you-go (PAYGo) has unlocked millions of loans in the off-grid solar sector, and the model is already being...

By Jacob Winiecki
PAYGo Solar: Lighting the Way for Flexible Financing Services
PAYGo and Essential Services |

PAYGo Solar: Lighting the Way for Flexible Financing Services

This briefing note examines four key industry challenges from a financial inclusion perspective that serve as the foundation for...

By FIBR
How to design PAYGo operational models to improve repayment
PAYGo and Essential Services |

How to design PAYGo operational models to improve repayment

There has been a lot of work exploring why some pay-as-you-go (PAYGo) solar customers stop paying after they are...

By Jacob Winiecki
HOW UNBUNDLING OF THE PAYGO BUSINESS MODEL IS DRIVING MARKET EXPANSION
PAYGo and Essential Services |

HOW UNBUNDLING OF THE PAYGO BUSINESS MODEL IS DRIVING MARKET EXPANSION

Just five years ago new entrants to the PAYGo market had to be vertically integrated: under one roof, they...

By FIBR
The Best of Both Worlds: Decoupling Financing from Distribution through FSP-Led PAYGo
PAYGo and Essential Services |

The Best of Both Worlds: Decoupling Financing from Distribution through FSP-Led PAYGo

  In just eight years over three million PAYGo solar systems have been sold, and over $1B has been...

By Jacob Winiecki
The power of flexibility: How innovative payment models can expand access to energy services
PAYGo and Essential Services |

The power of flexibility: How innovative payment models can expand access to energy services

In the past eight years, over 10 million people in emerging economies have acquired modern energy for the first...

By Jacob Winiecki
The Potential of PAYGo for Achieving Water and Sanitation for All (SDG 6)
PAYGo and Essential Services |

The Potential of PAYGo for Achieving Water and Sanitation for All (SDG 6)

To “ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all (SDG 6),” water service providers need to...

By FIBR
Machine Learning in PAYGo: What You Need to Know Before You Jump In
Artificial Intelligence |

Machine Learning in PAYGo: What You Need to Know Before You Jump In

Last summer, we published a post that described how ZOLA Electric uses Machine Learning (ML) to predict which of...

By Jacob Winiecki
FIBR in 2018: how might a more digital world help MSMEs and PAYGo providers grow?
Livelihoods and Microenterprise |

FIBR in 2018: how might a more digital world help MSMEs and PAYGo providers grow?

FIBR is an initiative of BFA Global in partnership with Mastercard Foundation to create new ways to connect low-income...

By FIBR
Why MFIs will (Finally) Crack the Solar Market
PAYGo and Essential Services |

Why MFIs will (Finally) Crack the Solar Market

  We have long hoped that microfinance would hold the key to unlocking access to energy for low-income households....

By Daniel Waldron
Prosper: A Product Innovation to Link PAYGo Customers to MFIs
PAYGo and Essential Services |

Prosper: A Product Innovation to Link PAYGo Customers to MFIs

BrightLife, FINCA Uganda, and FIBR are innovating to develop solutions that bridge the gap between microfinance and pay-as-you-go (PAYGo)...

By Daniel Waldron
The Promise of “Unbundling“ to Reshape PAYGo Solar
PAYGo and Essential Services |

The Promise of “Unbundling“ to Reshape PAYGo Solar

Unbundling is leading to significant innovation in technology and business models in the PAYGo solar sector. Instead of trying...

By Jacob Winiecki
Rethinking Agents to Scale PAYGo Businesses
PAYGo and Essential Services |

Rethinking Agents to Scale PAYGo Businesses

How to Leverage Agents for Critical Customer Relationship Management     Field agents have been critical to expanding digital...

By Jacob Winiecki
Predicting Payment Behavior in PAYGo: Machine Learning Can Power Customer Retention
PAYGo and Essential Services |

Predicting Payment Behavior in PAYGo: Machine Learning Can Power Customer Retention

Customer churn is a major headache for most companies and threatens to put the brakes on the red-hot growth...

By Jacob Winiecki
Realities of Digitizing PAYGo Operations in an Unbundled World
PAYGo and Essential Services |

Realities of Digitizing PAYGo Operations in an Unbundled World

Digitization Helped PEG Africa Increase Efficiency, Data Visibility and Agent Satisfaction Digitizing operations for PAYGo 2.0 providers seems like...

By Jacob Winiecki
The Odd Couple: PAYGo Solar and Financial Service Providers
Artificial Intelligence |

The Odd Couple: PAYGo Solar and Financial Service Providers

Co-written by Elizabeth Davidson If you are one of the 73 percent of Ugandans who is not connected to...

By Jacob Winiecki
Can PAYGo Unlock Access to Clean Water?
PAYGo and Essential Services |

Can PAYGo Unlock Access to Clean Water?

A Prepayment Model to Achieve the Sustainable Development Goal of Providing Water as Household-Level Service You’ve probably heard about...

By Abi Steinberg
FIBR’s Next Generation of Linkages to Financial Services: Betting on PAYGo
PAYGo and Essential Services |

FIBR’s Next Generation of Linkages to Financial Services: Betting on PAYGo

The Promise of Tangible, Flexible and Sustainable Services FIBR is a learning-driven program that seeks to discover how digitizing...

By Abi Steinberg
How Flexible Financing, Solar Panels and Data Could Be Key to Financial Inclusion
PAYGo and Essential Services |

How Flexible Financing, Solar Panels and Data Could Be Key to Financial Inclusion

  Pay-as-you-go (PAYGo or PAYG) is emerging as a solution that addresses both end-customer affordability and provides sufficient margins...

By Jacob Winiecki
Escaping Darkness: Understanding the Consumer Value in PAYGo Solar
PAYGo and Essential Services |

Escaping Darkness: Understanding the Consumer Value in PAYGo Solar

This second report by CGAP and FIBR seeks to understand the value that customers derived from PAYGo solar and...

By BFA GLOBAL
Why Alternative Lending Struggles to Scale in Emerging Markets
PAYGo and Essential Services |

Why Alternative Lending Struggles to Scale in Emerging Markets

And What Fintech Companies Can Do About It   During the past 10 years, the US, the UK and...

By David Porteous PhD
LENDABLE: Case Study of a Marketplace Lending Platform in East Africa
PAYGo and Essential Services |

LENDABLE: Case Study of a Marketplace Lending Platform in East Africa

In this case study, we examine an alternative marketplace lending platform that connects impact and institutional debt investors with...

By FIBR
Can ‘PAYGo Finance’ Connect Investors to Low-Income Customers?
PAYGo and Essential Services |

Can ‘PAYGo Finance’ Connect Investors to Low-Income Customers?

The Rise of a New Asset Class Alternative lenders in East Africa are connecting underbanked consumers with affordable, asset-backed...

By BFA GLOBAL
How are FIBR and PEGAfrica building viable PAYGo businesses and their agents?
PAYGo and Essential Services |

How are FIBR and PEGAfrica building viable PAYGo businesses and their agents?

FIBR worked with PEGAfrica to develop an agent sales app to improve how they can target, manage and intervene...

By BFA GLOBAL
How can AI help PAYGo providers better target customers?
PAYGo and Essential Services |

How can AI help PAYGo providers better target customers?

PAYGo providers fulfill an essential function when it comes to access to services, and many of the companies can...

By FIBR
How can AI help PAYGo businesses be more efficient and improve performance?
Artificial Intelligence |

How can AI help PAYGo businesses be more efficient and improve performance?

The FIBR project with Mastercard Foundation explore how artificial intelligence and machine learning can help PAYGo business be more...

By FIBR
What are some of the AI gallery applications for PAYGo providers?
PAYGo and Essential Services |

What are some of the AI gallery applications for PAYGo providers?

Originating from of FIBR’s AI Gallery, this video describes how AI and machine learning can apply to PAYGo. Matt...

By BFA GLOBAL