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Structure, not scoring

Credit that repays itself from salary

7Later is the technology layer behind salary-secured consumer lending.

Licensed lenders launch credit that is repaid from payroll — on your licence, on your balance sheet, on our platform. Employers can give staff access to credit without lending a cent of their own money, and in one configuration without signing anything at all.

Partner with us I'm an employer
  • Your licence, your balance sheet
  • No app to install
  • Part of 7touch.systems

The gap

Creditworthy borrowers, capital that cannot reach them

The standoff

Around 70% of adults in emerging markets have no access to formal credit

Not because lenders do not want the volume — because they cannot underwrite it. Thin bureau files, informal income records and no reliable way to collect turn retail lending into a risk decision most institutions decline to take.

The result is a standoff. Millions of salaried, employed, entirely creditworthy people borrow from informal lenders at punitive rates, while licensed institutions hold capital they cannot deploy into retail.

7Later removes the underwriting problem instead of trying to solve it.

Repayment is attached to the salary, so the lender no longer has to predict it.

Positioning

Structure, not scoring

A score is a probability

The usual answer to emerging-market credit risk is better prediction: alternative data, behavioural signals, machine learning. It works up to a point, but a score is a probability, and a probability has a floor it cannot go below when the underlying data is sparse.

The salary is the collateral

Salary-secured credit does something else. It does not predict whether the borrower will pay. It attaches repayment to the salary at a point before the borrower can spend it.

The salary is the collateral. What changes between configurations is only where the lender attaches to it.

Three configurations

Three ways to secure the same loan

Most partners run more than one. All three share a single platform, a single ledger and a single set of operating procedures.

  • Model A

    Employer guarantee

    The employer stands behind its workforce. One corporate credit assessment covers every employee; individual borrowers are not scored.

    Trade-off

    Strongest security, longest sales cycle.

    Employer guarantee in detail

  • Model B

    Payroll deduction

    The employer guarantees nothing but deducts the instalment from net pay on the monthly file it already produces.

    Effect

    Repayment happens before the employee sees the money.

    Payroll deduction in detail

  • Model C

    Salary domiciliation

    No employer involvement at all. The employee receives their salary at the partner lender, which sizes a limit against the observed inflow and collects on the day the salary lands.

    For the lender

    Every borrower becomes a payroll account holder, which makes this a deposit-growth programme as much as a lending one.

    Salary domiciliation in detail

How the three compare

The borrower's side

What the credit looks like

A limit sized to net salary. Short terms, typically one to four instalments. Spendable at merchants, online, on fuel, groceries and utility bills, with merchants paid immediately and in full. Enrolment in minutes through WhatsApp or mobile web, with no app to install.

  1. Limit

    Sized to net salary

  2. Term

    Typically one to four instalments

  3. Where it spends

    Merchants, online, fuel, groceries and utility bills

  4. Enrolment

    Minutes, through WhatsApp or mobile web

The platform

What you're licensing

The machinery a licensed lender needs to run salary-secured credit — built, operated and reconciled on a live book.

  • An accounts and settlement engine

    A full double-entry ledger of employer accounts, employee limits, merchant balances and reconciliation against payroll cycles. This is the core of the system and the hardest part to build.

  • Multi-rail money movement

    Internal platform balances and external rails in one flow — mobile money, bank transfer, cards, e-money issuers, utility billers. Merchants settle instantly regardless of which rail the money came from.

  • Distribution without an app

    Employees onboard and transact through WhatsApp or mobile web. App installation is the largest single drop-off point in emerging-market consumer finance.

  • Merchant acceptance without merchant onboarding

    Employees can pay at merchants that have never integrated, so the network is useful on day one instead of after an eighteen-month acquisition programme.

  • A pricing engine that respects the local ceiling

    All-in cost of credit calculated actuarially and validated against the applicable cap before a limit is issued.

  • Operator tooling

    Admin console, limit and policy engine, employer portal, merchant portal, portfolio analytics and regulatory reporting data.

The accounts and settlement engine

Decades of precedent

The model is proven. The infrastructure is what's missing.

Salary-secured consumer credit is not an experiment. It operates at national scale and has for decades. In each of those markets it became one of the lowest-loss consumer portfolios available to lenders.

What most emerging markets still lack is the machinery to run it. That is what 7Later supplies, and it is all a licensed lender needs to add to capital it already holds.

  • crédito consignado Brazil
  • crédito de nómina Mexico
  • libranza Colombia
  • check-off lending East and Southern Africa
  • domiciliation de salaire Francophone Africa and the Gulf

Two ways to work with us

Licensed lenders

You hold the licence, the capital and the customer relationship

Banks, microfinance institutions and banks, savings and loans companies, consumer finance companies, SACCOs, NBFCs. We supply the product, the technology and the operating model. Terms are revenue share, agreed per market.

White-label deployment for licensed lenders

Employers

No cash outlay, no credit exposure, no licence

Companies with staff on formal payroll. Nothing on your balance sheet. Depending on the configuration, either a monthly deduction file or no involvement at all.

Employee credit benefit at no cost to the employer

Markets

Where 7Later works

We are not tied to a region. We are tied to a set of conditions, and where they hold, the model works.

Current focus

  • Sub-Saharan Africa
  • North Africa and the Middle East
  • South and Southeast Asia

We also work outside these regions where the conditions are met.

The full criteria, and what disqualifies a market

  1. A formal payroll base
  2. A genuine consumer credit gap
  3. Enough headroom under the local cost-of-credit ceiling for the partner's licence category
  4. A phone-first population

Traction

Where we are

  1. Built and operated

    Our own lending book, end to end

    7Later was first built and operated as our own lending book, end to end — issuance, spending, payroll deduction, repayment, reconciliation — across full monthly cycles with live employers and live merchants. Running our own book is how the operating procedures and the reconciliation logic got written.

  2. Now

    The partnership phase

    We are now in the partnership phase, deploying the platform with licensed institutions that bring the licence and the capital. The first such partnership is underway in West Africa with a licensed credit institution.

Frequently asked questions

Is 7Later a lender?

No. 7Later is a technology provider. Credit is issued by the licensed financial institution that partners with us, on its own licence and balance sheet. We never hold, disburse or own credit funds.

Who carries the credit risk?

The lender does, supported by the security in whichever configuration is in use. 7Later takes no credit exposure and does not share in credit losses.

Does the employer lend the money?

No. Financing comes entirely from a licensed financial institution. The employer contributes no capital in any configuration, and no receivable appears on the employer's balance sheet.

Which countries does 7Later operate in?

7Later is a technology provider rather than a lender, so the platform is deployed wherever a licensed partner operates. Our current focus is Sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa and the Middle East, and South and Southeast Asia. Rather than a fixed country list, we assess four conditions: a formal payroll base, a genuine consumer credit gap, enough headroom under the local cost-of-credit ceiling for the partner's licence category, and phone-first distribution.

How long does a launch take?

A partner deployment typically runs from signature to first live employer in a matter of weeks rather than quarters, because the platform, the product logic and the operating procedures already exist.

All questions on salary-secured lending

Bring the licence and the capital. We'll bring everything else.

Start a conversation

Revenue share, agreed per market. No rate card, no capital contribution.