By Gboyega Alaka
Fast-rising payment and financial services company, OPay has unveiled its growth plans for 2021 and beyond.
Speaking at a press parley on Monday, the company’s Managing VP in Nigeria, Joshua Yau said in 2020 was its most impactful year, despite the pandemic.
“Amidst the pandemic, lockdown, and global uncertainty, OPay had its most impactful and transformative year yet in 2020. As a payment company, it grew its total gross transaction value 4.5 times to over $2 billion in December. The point-of-sale (POS) terminals deployed in its mobile money agent and merchant network represented roughly 1/5 of offline payments in Nigeria by year-end. Its mobile wallets have more than 2 million wallets with balances, totalling over $17 million.”
While stating that the company is very proud of its accomplishment in what he termed “a very huge market,” Yau also announced that the company now has over 350,000 agents spread across the country, thereby making it possible for people to access cash in their communities.
Expatiating further on this, the company’s Country Manager, Iniabasi Akpan, said, “We helped to give easy-to-access financial services to close to more than ten million Nigerians in all corners of the country. Our agents serve a population that is far from bank branches and ATMs, often in the outskirt of cities, suburban areas, or rural areas”.
This, he said, is in addition to the fact that the agents also get empowered. “By providing their customers with convenience, they were able to earn a solid income with many expanding their businesses, even in the difficult pandemic.”
He seized the opportunity to reiterate that OPay is a payment and financial services company, licensed and regulated by the Central Bank of Nigeria and not a mere ride-hailing company.
Enumerating the organisation’s plan for 2021, VP, Payment Solutions and Corporate Partnerships, Oladipo Omogbenigun, said OPay will rely on developing and deepening its strategic partnerships in the ecosystem with banks, regulators, card schemes, payment processors, payment service providers and other key players.
He said this is in addition to “plans to partner and support banks to scale deposits many-fold, “since by regulation, OPay needs to safeguard its wallet deposits with established banks.”
He also gave insights into OPay debit cards, which are scheduled to be launched this year.
“The cards are the first of their kind and will be directly linked to OPay wallets. This will further bolster our gospel of financial inclusion. OPay wallet users will be able to use the cards on ATMs, POS terminals at merchant locations and e-commerce sites,” Omogbenigun said.
“We have launched CreditMe, which gives easy access to credit to all wallet users at the point of purchase. We have also just launched standardised loan products to our agents and merchants based on our relationship. We think access to savings and loans through our partners is the critical step in true financial inclusion beyond just accessing cash,” Omogbenigun added.
VP, Product and Engineering, Dotun Adekunle shared plans around empowering offline payments and encouraging online businesses. To this effect, he said, “We have innovatively built technological workarounds to ensure higher network availability on our systems without compromising speed and quality of service.”
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