That browser company that lost to Google Chrome swept Nigeria with fintech. With a $2 billion valuation, it also joins the ranks of unicorns

Startup Dig

"Startup Dig", where we briefly introduce startup companies and their services that interest us, one company each week. In this 13th installment, we will introduce OPay, a mobile payment service that is showing explosive growth in Nigeria, Africa's largest country with a population of 200 million. Founded Opay January 2018 Total amount raised about $570 million (about 65 billion yen)

Mobile money spreads in Africa

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"Mobile money" is widely used in the Sub-Saharan Africa region (African countries south of the Sahara Desert), which has become famous as a Fintech advanced country in recent years. Kenya's "M -PESA” is famous. In countries where most people do not have a bank account but have a prepaid mobile phone, it began to spread widely from around 2010. According to a note by Yukari Umemoto, CEO of Africa Business Partners, who lives in Kenya, banks are relatively strong in Nigeria, which boasts the largest population in Africa, and debit cards are already widely used. It means that the use of mobile money was not progressing. However, OPay started quite late in 2018, but has exploded in popularity in Nigeria. According to the article "OPay and Nigeria's Mobile Money Wars" in "Emergent", its payment volume increased by 260% from 830 billion Naira in 2019 to more than 3 trillion Naira (about 800 billion yen) in 2020. As of June 2021, Nigeria's mobile payment volume will almost exceed the total in 2020. There are currently three main types of services offered by OPay. "Opay Payments" for P2P payments and remittances. "Opay Mechant Tools", which provides a free POS system for use by retail stores and sells mobile data through it Investments, Nigerian Chinese Company Opay's Magical Financial Services”). And since it can also be used as an alternative to a credit card, the "OPay Card" is a debit card that can be used to make payments to overseas companies, such as subscribing to Netflix. The app itself is intended to be used via the Internet, but it also supports remittances and payments via analog lines via conventional base stations.

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