OPay Digital Services has hired Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, and JPMorgan Chase to lead a potential United States initial public offering targeting a $4 billion valuation, Bloomberg reported on 1 May 2026. The SoftBank-backed Nigerian fintech plans a share sale later in 2026, doubling its $2 billion valuation from its August 2021 Series C funding round, when SoftBank Vision Fund led a $400 million investment.

The listing would rank among the largest by an African technology company in recent years, potentially opening a pathway for fintech peers such as Flutterwave and Moniepoint to access international capital markets. OPay serves over 40 million Nigerian users through mobile money, transfers, bill payments, savings, and lending services, delivered via an agent network exceeding 500,000 locations nationwide.

OPay’s valuation has climbed steadily since the 2021 funding round. Opera Limited, an early investor holding a 9.5 per cent stake, valued its position at $294.6 million in a regulatory filing, implying a total valuation of approximately $3.1 billion by the end of 2025. Opera’s April securities filing assigned an 85 per cent probability to an OPay listing within two years, signalling investor confidence in a public market debut.

The company has strengthened its leadership ahead of the potential listing. Zhou Yahui, the Chinese entrepreneur who founded OPay in 2018, now serves as executive chairman. James Perry, a former Citigroup managing director with 25 years of investment banking experience, joined as chief financial officer in December 2025, bringing capital markets expertise required to navigate US regulatory requirements and investor scrutiny.

OPay processed approximately $12 billion in monthly transaction volume by mid-2025, establishing its position as one of Nigeria’s dominant mobile money operators alongside rivals Moniepoint and PalmPay. The three platforms collectively serve over 90 million users while controlling the majority of Nigeria’s mobile money segment.

A recent Central Bank of Nigeria directive restricting point-of-sale agents to work with a single financial institution could further consolidate OPay’s market position by limiting agent network fragmentation that previously enabled customers to switch between competing platforms.

The IPO timing coincides with broader momentum in the African fintech sector. Airtel Africa is separately planning a London Stock Exchange listing of its mobile money unit, targeting a $10 billion valuation. McKinsey estimates African fintech companies could collectively generate approximately $47 billion in revenue by 2028, reflecting the sector’s scale and growing global investor interest.

A successful OPay listing would validate its business model in competitive US capital markets while demonstrating African fintech maturity beyond regional scale toward profitability and governance standards public markets demand. The offering is likely to face scrutiny around regulatory readiness, competitive differentiation, and global expansion beyond its Nigerian home market.

The planned IPO represents a departure from the cautious private funding approach historically adopted by African tech companies following disappointing public market performances by Nigeria-focused Jumia and Egypt’s Swvl, both of which experienced significant share price declines post-listing. OPay’s careful preparation, through experienced executive recruitment and sustained valuation growth, suggests confidence in avoiding those pitfalls while establishing a benchmark for African fintech companies seeking public market validation.

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