Africa's banking system was built on a core assumption: the most reliable borrowers are those who earn regular salaries. Yet on a continent where the majority of people earn their living through the informal economy, that assumption has left millions of creditworthy consumers locked out of the formal financial system.

Rather than abandoning the payslip, banks are broadening the range of information they use to evaluate borrowers. Lenders are now drawing on mobile money transactions, telecom activity, point-of-sale (POS) payments, and other digital financial footprints to assess individuals who have long been excluded from formal credit. The shift is enabled by the sheer scale of digital financial activity on the continent: sub-Saharan Africa is the world's largest mobile money market, with over half a billion registered accounts, according to GSMA, the global telecom industry body.

This expanded approach to credit assessment reflects a fundamental reality of African economies: they are driven by informal businesses, gig workers, traders, and entrepreneurs whose incomes seldom arrive as predictable monthly salaries. Traditional underwriting models were designed for borrowers with formal employment contracts, bank statements, and established credit histories — tools that fail to capture how millions of Africans actually earn, spend, and manage money.

The cost of this blind spot is substantial. Africa faces a USD 300 billion financing gap for consumers and small businesses. Rather than replacing traditional credit assessment methods, banks are supplementing them with new data sources designed to provide a more complete picture of a customer's financial behaviour. The outcome is an evolution in underwriting that recognises creditworthiness is not confined to formally employed workers.

"We know there is vibrant economic activity across the continent, but that doesn't translate into what lenders can underwrite," Dalumuzi Mhlanga, CEO of Notto, an African licensed and regulated alternative credit bureau, told TechCabal on Wednesday. "The disconnect lies between how people actually earn incomes, spend and save in the informal sector and how banks process that as part of their underwriting."

Alternative credit scoring aims to bridge that disconnect. According to Mhlanga, rather than relying exclusively on repayment histories and bank records, these models analyse behavioural patterns such as regular deposits into mobile money wallets or bank accounts, recurring bill payments, and spending patterns. The underlying principle is that consistent financial behaviour can signal a person's willingness and ability to repay a loan, even if they have never held a credit card or a formal bank loan.

Notto reports that it has analysed more than one billion transaction records, built credit scores for more than eight million consumers, and generated credit assessments for over five million mobile money users across South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The company says the results have been measurable. Before its models were introduced, only around 1% to 2% of the five million consumers it assessed had access to formal credit. Within roughly a year of operation, lending expanded almost tenfold while non-performing loans remained below 4%.

"We are not going to introduce risk," Mhlanga said. "We have been able to identify consumers and small businesses that otherwise wouldn't have qualified, extend credit to them, but still deliver very low non-pering loans."

Major banks say the industry is moving in the same direction.

"Traditionally, banking has relied on salary as proof of a customer's ability to repay," said Nako Bolote, Access Bank's Group Head of Cross-Border Payments and Remittances, Africa. "The problem is that formal employment represents only a small portion of the population. Banks are now looking for ways to serve the informal sector, where we know money is flowing."

In an interview with TechCabal on Wednesday, Bolote explained that lenders are partnering with mobile network operators whose data provides insights into customers' financial activity that conventional banking records simply cannot capture. These partnerships are gaining traction as several African markets, including Nigeria and Kenya, have introduced or are developing open banking frameworks that establish rules for how financial data can be shared between institutions with customer consent.

"Telecom data doesn't necessarily show salary income, but it does provide visibility into customers' financial activity and usage patterns," Bolote said. "Through those partnerships, we are able to better understand customers' cash flows, even when they're informal, and extend credit accordingly."

The same data-driven logic is being extended to small businesses and gig workers. Banks are analysing POS transaction histories to assess business cash flow, while earnings data from digital platforms can help establish the consistency of freelancers' incomes. The goal is not to replace traditional affordability assessments but to complement them with evidence that reflects how people actually participate in modern African economies.

For Bolote, the implications reach beyond technology. "The people being brought into the formal financial system through these new approaches to credit assessment are exactly the underserved communities we have been trying to reach," he said. "Formal employment isn't the only legitimate way people earn a living."

The payslip will remain part of the lending equation for the foreseeable future. But as banks continue to widen their definition of creditworthiness, millions of Africans whose financial lives have existed entirely outside formal banking may finally come into view — and into the credit system.