Ayodele Tobi had a problem. The Nigerian student was struggling to make ends meet, as the money his parents sent him did not quite stretch to the end of the month, leaving him unable to afford food and educational materials.

As a young Nigerian with no financial history, Tobi is notably uncreditworthy by traditional banking standards. But he benefited from the trend among many African companies to find innovative, alternative ways of assessing an individual’s creditworthiness in a region where the majority of people have never had access to formal financial services.