Managing Default Rates with PaygOps: A Comprehensive Approach for Financial Service Providers

High default rates often pose a key challenge for Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) and microlenders across Sub-Saharan Africa, potentially threatening their sustainability and limiting financial inclusion efforts. According to OECD (2021), borrowers from MFIs across this region report a default rate of 30.8%, which is higher compared to those of borrowers from banks (22.1%) and government credit institutions (22.5%).

Several factors can contribute to high default rates, including borrowers' irregular income, lack of financial literacy, weak credit assessment processes, and external economic shocks such as inflation or climate-related disruptions. The challenge is clear: when default rates rise, MFIs face liquidity constraints, which leads to higher interest rates, reduced loan accessibility and potential financial instability. For borrowers, in contrast, defaulting can damage their creditworthiness, pushing them towards predatory lenders and deepening financial exclusion.

Moses Kariuki, Director of Jupiter Credit, an MFI in Kenya, believes that high default rates remain one of the most pressing challenges for microfinance institutions. He estimates that most MFIs in the country have default rates of 20% or more.

“One of the biggest challenges organisations in the sector face is high default rates, especially in rural areas where access to banking services is very limited and companies lack a credit scoring model. Without proper risk assessment, lenders struggle to identify reliable borrowers, leading to increased defaults,” he explains. 

How can PaygOps help MFIs in mitigating default risks?

PaygOps offers comprehensive digital solutions to help MFIs and microlenders mitigate default risks and enhance loan management efficiency. With its lead registration tools, automated repayment tracking, and data-driven insights, PaygOps enables lenders to monitor borrower behaviour, adjust loan terms, and integrate flexible payment solutions. By leveraging PaygOps, MFIs can improve collection rates, optimise risk management, and ensure sustainable financial services for underserved communities.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the solutions that can help manage the default rate of MFIs and microlenders. ⬇️

KYC and Credit Scoring 

PaygOps streamlines the borrower management process from the start, ensuring a structured lead registration system. Its custom forms allow lenders to capture essential customer data, facilitating accurate credit assessments and reducing the risk of lending to high-risk individuals. By integrating customer data collection as part of KYC procedures and credit scoring models (via custom workflows), PaygOps enhances risk evaluation, allowing businesses to tailor assessments to their market needs. Advanced integrations with external credit scoring software can further refine risk analysis, ensuring a robust foundation for responsible lending.

Let’s watch how a credit scoring model can be integrated with PaygOps and leveraged to enhance the assessment of customers’ creditworthiness:

Watch the full video

Why are data insights, KYC and credit scoring so important to reduce default rates?

In the microfinance sector, data insights, KYC, and credit scoring play a huge role in managing churn rates because they enable better risk assessment, proactive customer engagement, and improved portfolio management. Borrowers in underserved markets usually lack formal credit histories, making traditional risk assessment challenging. However, by leveraging granular customer data facilitated by a comprehensive platform like PaygOps, MFIs can build and integrate predictive models that identify high-risk borrowers early, allowing lenders to take preventive actions such as offering flexible repayment plans or targeted engagement strategies. This is crucial not only for financial sustainability, but also for protecting borrowers from over-indebtedness, as approving loans to financially vulnerable clients without proper assessment can lead to severe economic strain on families, negatively impacting their well-being and long-term financial inclusion. 

Additionally, enhanced KYC processes ensure that lenders collect accurate and structured data at the onboarding stage, improving long-term risk mitigation. Credit scoring models that incorporate both pre-sale and post-sale data, including repayment history and aftersales interactions, provide a more reliable prediction of borrower behaviour, allowing MFIs to minimise default rates and optimise loan portfolio performance. Notably, studies show that adding early-stage interaction data to predictive models can increase accuracy to 80% and reduce false positive errors by 30%, making them significantly more reliable for managing default risks.

Portfolio Monitoring

PaygOps' portfolio monitoring capabilities enable lending organisations with a real-time, comprehensive view of their borrowers, contracts, and overall portfolio performance. Through interactive dashboards (default or customised), organisations can gain critical insights into borrower behaviour, repayment history and patterns, demographic trends, contract flexibility, conversion rates, portfolios at risk, etc. This enhanced visibility enables lenders to proactively flag high-risk or churning clients and take data-driven actions to mitigate default risks. 

For instance, lenders can design targeted campaigns, offer payment incentives, or plan personalised outreach such as calls and visits to encourage repayment and maintain borrower engagement. By leveraging PaygOps' portfolio monitoring tools, MFIs and microlenders can optimise their portfolio management strategies, aiming at reduced churn.

After-Sales Management Tools

Lenders can also leverage PaygOps’ comprehensive Ticketing microservice to monitor customer inquiries and resolve disputes efficiently, helping to mitigate default risks. PaygOps Management tools include functionalities  for automating, configuring, and sending automatic SMS reminders at specific instances, ensuring, for example, that customers stay informed about their loan’s due amounts. Additionally, it allows for the creation of targeted campaigns that the lender could leverage to promote payment incentives to encourage timely payments, as well as sales retention incentives to maintain customer engagement. 

Implementing automated payment reminders has shown positive results in improving loan repayment rates among microfinance borrowers. For instance, a study in the Philippines found that borrowers who received text message reminders were 7-9% more likely to pay on time, reducing the average days late by two days per month. Other studies have found that reminders can have further impact when messages are personalised and include the loan officer's name, resulting in higher repayment rates, especially among clients with established relationships with their loan officers. These findings suggest that while digital tools and automation can streamline operations, integrating personalised communication fosters stronger lender-borrower relationships, enhancing borrowers' commitment to timely repayments, ultimately encouraging future borrowing.

Benefits of Using PaygOps for Default Rate Management

• Enhanced Risk Mitigation: Precise credit assessment tools lead to more informed lending decisions and reduced default rates.

• Improved Operational Efficiency: Automated data collection and real-time insights streamline decision-making processes.

• Scalability and Customisation: PaygOps adapts to various business models, allowing lenders to configure credit scoring parameters based on their unique market dynamics (we invite you to read this article where we put PaygOps toe-to-toe with other enterprise systems and evaluate their scalability and customisation capabilities)

By providing flexible lead management, accurate credit scoring, and proactive portfolio monitoring, PaygOps empowers MFIs and microlenders to mitigate default risks effectively. These digital solutions not only enhance operational efficiency but also promote responsible lending, ensuring that borrowers receive financial support tailored to their capacity. As microfinance institutions strive for long-term sustainability, leveraging data-driven insights and automation will be key to reducing default rates while fostering trust and financial inclusion.

To mitigate default risks, Jupiter Credit’s Director emphasises the need for a structured approach combining client assessment, proactive engagement, and digital tools.

“To tackle default rates, MFIs need strong vetting processes, timely follow-ups, and structured penalties. Moreover, leveraging technology is key in today’s financial landscape. Having a comprehensive credit scoring model can be a great asset to assess borrower risk more accurately, while digital tools like PaygOps can support better decision-making through real-time reporting and automated client engagement.”

Ready to enhance your default rate management? Book a demo with PaygOps today!

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About PaygOps:

We empower suppliers of essential products and services with flexible, inclusive IT solutions that amplify their mission to serve the unbanked worldwide, even in the most remote areas. PaygOps seamlessly integrates with enterprise applications, payment systems (Mobile Money), and API services, enabling the smooth management of lease financing (for both Paygo and non-Paygo products) and operations across key sectors including solar, agriculture, clean cooking, access to water, e-mobility and microfinance. Designed for modularity and interoperability, PaygOps simplifies access to credit, streamlines distribution, and provides investors with critical financial data and insights.