OPay has seen tremendous increase recently in its many areas of services, ride-hailing, food delivery, loan services and payment services. The most recent of them all came in the category of payment services.
“OPay is a one-stop mobile-based platform for payment, transportation, food & grocery delivery, and other important services in your everyday life. Millions of users in Nigeria rely on OPay everyday to send and receive money, pay bills, obtain transportation and order food and groceries. OPay is focused on making opportunities accessible to everyone and delivering on the promise of financial inclusion in Africa today to safely connect people with the places, opportunities, and experiences that they truly care about.”
On Saturday, the company announced that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has granted it license to begin international money transfer. The development means that OPay now has the approval of the apex bank to facilitate B2B (business to business), B2P (business to person) and P2P (person to person) remittance services into Nigeria.
At a time when there is a huge gap in such remittances, OPay is seeking to secure a place in international remittance and provide Nigerians with the alternative they need.
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OPay has over 100, 000 mobile money agents in Nigeria, which gives them the needed infrastructure to play big in the international remittance scene. The idea is to enable people, customers and companies to partner with OPay and have a platform to receive remittances from overseas. Recipients will have the choice to receive their money via OPay wallets, OPay agents or any of the Nigerian banks.
The Director, Remittances Services at OPay, Kunle Olamuyiwa, said:
“The plan is to distort the remittance space and ensure that international money transfer into Nigeria is safer, faster and more affordable. We are already working with major global remittance companies around the world and will start facilitating remittances to Nigeria with these partners, ensuring the best fees and exchange rates, speed and security.
“There is a plan to commence a big-bang promo in December with lots of prices for recipients of money transfer who receive their money directly into their OPay wallets. I can only advise everyone who has families around the world to get an OPay Wallet. They will get better value for these funds doing transfers to any bank, paying their bills, buying food and also using our on-demand transport services i.e Oride, OBus and OTrike. And on top of all, they can channel unused funds to OWealth and earn interest on it daily. It is, indeed, better times for recipients of international money transfers in Nigeria.”
In July, OPay announced that it has raised $50 million to augment its rapid growing enterprise. The lead investors are, IDG Capital, Sequoia China, Source Code Capital, Meituan-Dianping, GSR Ventures and Opera Limited. The company said the fund is Nigeria-focused, it plans to use it built a larger platform to accommodate its expanding community.
OPay launched its mobile payment in August 2018, in less than a year, there was wondrous growth. According to its website, by June 2019, there were more than 40, 000 active agents conducting transactions at the excess of $5 million. While the company is exploring opportunities in other areas such as transport, they are prioritizing the payment system due to the growth in numbers and the size of financial respect it has the potential to command, especially in Nigeria.
The Chairman and CEO of Opera Limited, Yahui Zhou, said: “By incubating OPay and supporting the company through its rapid acceleration, Opera has also demonstrated its ability to leverage its brand and consumer reach to create attractive, fast-growing businesses on the African continent. We are highly pleased by the team’s results and are excited to continue supporting OPay as the journey continues.”
Commenting on the opportunities that OPay has found in the Nigerian market, Qingsheng Zheng, partner of Sequoia China commented:
“OPay has successfully built a leading mobile payment business in Nigeria in a short period of time. We are excited to be part of its continued growth, as it provides access to better mobile banking services for Nigeria’s 200 million populations, and expands into new areas,” he said.
OPay has a mission in Nigeria!