Mastercard Pushes ‘Pay on Demand’ to Tackle Nigeria’s 40 Million Unbanked Population
Nigeria faces significant financial exclusion, with 40.1 million adults unbanked, impacting women, youth, and rural dwellers. The Pay on Demand model, as highlighted by Mastercard, emerges as a critical solution to bridge this gap. This strategy offers five key avenues, including bridging the digital divide, providing access to daily needs, ensuring affordable internet, leveraging mobile money, and creating valuable financial data, all essential for achieving national financial inclusion targets.
Mastercard is advancing a new ‘Pay on Demand’ strategy aimed at accelerating financial inclusion in Nigeria, where over 40 million adults remain unbanked despite growth in digital finance.
The model allows users to access essential services and products through small, flexible payments, targeting underserved groups such as women, youth, and rural populations.
With cash still dominating sectors like agriculture and MSMEs, the initiative seeks to bridge long-standing gaps in access to finance across Sub-Saharan Africa.
Outlined in its report, Pay on Demand is positioned as a scalable solution to drive inclusion by enabling device financing, affordable internet access, and cashless payments for daily needs.
By allowing consumers to pay in instalments for smartphones, solar power systems, and other essentials, the model lowers entry barriers into the digital economy.
It also strengthens mobile money adoption, currently underutilized in Nigeria compared to peers, while helping generate financial data that can unlock access to credit and insurance for previously excluded individuals.
The push aligns with Nigeria’s broader financial inclusion goals under the Central Bank of Nigeria, though progress has lagged behind targets.
Mastercard argues that combining digital inclusion with innovative financing models is critical to closing the gap, particularly as infrastructure, affordability, and policy challenges persist.
Ultimately, the success of Pay on Demand will depend on coordinated efforts between government, telecom operators, financial institutions, and private sector players to scale adoption and deliver long-term economic impact.