General Manager PayJoy Africa, Dominique Freidl(left); Group Head, Strategy & Innovation, Sterling Bank Plc, Shina Atilola; Managing Director, TD Mobile, Gozy Ijogun; Sales & Distribution Executive, Adekunle Adebiyi, Chief Marketing Officer, Rahul De and Senior Manager Data & Devices, Abiodun Ajayi, all of MTN Nigeria at the launch of MTN Device Financing Scheme in partnership with PayJoy and Sterling Bank held in Victoria Island, Lagos.
In a bid to make smart phone acquisition easier, and convenient for Nigerians, Sterling Bank, MTN, PayJoy have partnered to launch ‘Device Financing; Pay Small Small’.
While speaking at the event, Senior Manager Data & Devices, MTN, Abiodun Ajayi said: “Everyone deserves the benefit of a modern connected line, and our vision is to make our costumers lives a whole lot brighter.
“And there’s nothing that brings that more to life than a smartphone, but unfortunately over 80% of Nigerians are still excluded from this very exclusive community, the reason, I saw exclusive, is because affordability is still a problem.”, he said.
Ajayi added: “that’s why we’re excited about what we’re doing here today, because, if we can bridge the affordability gap, then we would start seeing more people on board and start seeing change.”
Customers would be able to access loans to buy smartphones and pay back on installments, within a stipulated period.
The scheme is aimed at bridging the affordability gap, and boost smart phone penetration in Nigeria, to make smart phone acquisition easy for the average Nigerian, without parting with large amount at once.
The scheme is aimed at bridging the affordability gap, and boost smart phone penetration in Nigeria, to make smart phone acquisition easy for the average Nigerian, without parting with large amount at once.
Customers willing to purchase a smartphone can simply walk into any of the 14 MTN experience centers nationwide, and through loans financed by Sterling bank, they can acquire any smartphone, and can pay as low as 7,500 per month for the device.
The customer would need to open an account with Sterling Bank for the bank to pay the loan into, which would be done at any of the 14 experience centers, allowing them to access credit from N25,000 – N400,000 to purchase any phone available, and pay back within the agreed timeframe, which ranges from two to six months, and has an interest rate of 18%, and an insurance premium of 4%.
The device-financing scheme is open to all customers and not only salary earners, once you can provide access to 3 months bank statements for your most active accounts from any bank.
The scheme is secured and powered by PayJoy, as a risk management tool to make sure the device is taken without payment, should the customer default on his payment.
After a 7-day grace period, the device would be locked, PayJoy is a firmware for locking and unlocking the device for the period given based on the duration of the loan.
If Customers do not pay after the grace period, Sterling bank can then activate it’s tokenization service to debit the account of the customer provided during registration.