Laptop instalments without a guarantor: what replaces one

For a lot of Nigerian students, the word that ends a loan conversation is not "interest" or "deposit". It is "guarantor". You find a plan, you qualify on everything else, and then a form asks for the name, employer and payslip of someone who will pay if you don't.

Most students cannot produce one. Not because nobody trusts them, but because the people who would vouch for them do not have payslips either. The National Bureau of Statistics puts 93% of Nigerian employment in the informal sector (National Bureau of Statistics, 2024). A guarantor form assumes a formal economy that most families are not in.

This article explains what a guarantor is for, who still asks for one, what lenders use instead, and why a student's own record is a fair replacement.

What a guarantor is for

A guarantor is a second borrower who only pays if the first one fails. To the lender, that person's salary and bank account are what make the loan safe. The guarantor is, in effect, someone else's credit history standing in for yours.

That is why it is asked of students. A student has no history, no salary and, usually, no collateral. Rather than work out whether the student will pay, a traditional lender finds somebody who already has the paperwork and makes them responsible. It is cheap for the lender. It is expensive for the relationship, and impossible when nobody in your life has a payslip.

Who still asks for one

We checked what device and education lenders publish about guarantors on 19 October 2026. Only their own pages are used.

Read down the right-hand column and the pattern is clear. Every lender replaces the guarantor with something. The question for a student is whether that something is a thing they have.

The five things that replace a guarantor

1. 1A bank mandate. Most plans take a card or account authorisation so instalments are debited automatically. Klump's terms let it "debit your designated bank account and card" (Klump, 2026b). For bank loans, the CBN's Global Standing Instruction goes further and reaches your accounts at other banks (NIBSS, 2020).
2. 2A credit report. Where you have a file at CRC, CreditRegistry or FirstCentral, a lender can read it. Credit Direct says it does. Most students have no file to read.
3. 3Evidence of income. A bank statement or a salary classification. Again, the thing a student does not have.
4. 4The asset itself. Phone financiers can lock the device until you are current. The phone is its own guarantor.
5. 5Your record as a student. Enrolment, academic standing, and how you repay. This is the only one of the five that a student already has, which is why the student-only lenders use it.

Why a student's own record is a fair substitute

The objection is obvious: grades are not money. But a guarantor's payslip is not money either. It is a signal about reliability, and the research on alternative signals is consistent. Björkegren and Grissen found that a model built on behaviour rather than financial history "attains similar performance on those without financial histories, who cannot be scored using traditional methods" (Björkegren & Grissen, 2020). The International Finance Corporation's 2026 review of 448 firms using alternative data found that, under such models, women "perform as well as or better than men" (IFC, 2026).

Academic standing is a behavioural signal of exactly that kind: it records whether someone shows up, finishes things and meets deadlines over years. Pody's own experience is that it is the strongest predictor of repayment we have found, which is why it sets the ceiling a student's score can reach. The record you then build by repaying does the rest.

How Pody approaches it

• No guarantor, no payslip, no credit history. We verify your ID and your student status instead. What verification involves.
• What we look at: your enrolment at a partner institution, your academic standing, and your repayment record with Pody. Together they set a Pody Credit Score from 0 to 1000 and a limit up to ₦1,000,000. See the credit model.
• The terms: from 20% today, the rest over 1, 3, 6 or 9 months, 0% interest, no hidden fees, no markup. A late payment fee may apply if you miss a date.
• One plan at a time, and paying on time raises your score and can raise your limit.

A guarantor was always a workaround for a lender that could not see the borrower. A student who shows up, passes and pays on time is visible enough on their own.

If you need a laptop and have nobody's payslip to borrow, see how student laptop financing works on Pody.

Sources

• Access Bank. (n.d.). Advance for school fees. Access Bank Plc. Visit the page
• Björkegren, D., & Grissen, D. (2020). Behavior revealed in mobile phone usage predicts credit repayment. The World Bank Economic Review, 34(3), 618–634. Read the paper
• BuySafePay. (2026). Terms. Checked 19 October 2026. Visit the page
• Credit Direct. (2026). Help centre: Credit Direct Checkout. Credit Direct Finance Company. Checked 19 October 2026. Visit the page
• International Finance Corporation. (2026). Cracking the credit code: Alternative data and AI for financial inclusion. World Bank Group. Read the report
• Klump. (2026a). How it works. Klump Technology Company. Checked 19 October 2026. Visit the page
• Klump. (2026b). Terms of service (customer). Klump Technology Company. Checked 19 October 2026. Visit the page
• M-KOPA. (2026). Terms and conditions (Nigeria). Checked 19 October 2026. Visit the page
• National Bureau of Statistics. (2024). Nigeria labour force survey Q2 2024. Read the report
• Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System. (2020, August 23). Explainer: CBN's new GSI policy, what bank customers need to know. Read the explainer