OPay Is Heading to Wall Street. Its Filing Shows Loans Are Now Its Biggest Earner

The app millions of Nigerians use to pay for bread, send money to a cousin or borrow until payday is preparing to become a public company in New York.

OPay has filed to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker OPAY. The filing, made public on October 9, is the first time the company has opened its books in this much detail. And the numbers tell a story most users never see: OPay now earns more from lending than from payments.

What happened

OPay submitted an F-1, the document foreign companies file with the US Securities and Exchange Commission before selling shares to American investors. It has not yet set a share price, the number of shares or a listing date. Semafor reports that pricing is expected around mid-November, and earlier reports put OPay's target valuation at about $4 billion. That figure does not appear in the filing itself.

Standard Bank's Africa arm, Stanbic Africa Holdings, has agreed to invest up to $200 million alongside the IPO. OPay also says it plans a second listing on the Nigerian Exchange in Lagos after the New York debut, though the filing gives no timetable and warns it may never happen.

The key numbers

$467.1 million in revenue for the first half of 2026, up from $197.5 million a year earlier. That is more than double.

$90.9 million in net income over the same six months, up from $21.7 million.

$536.3 million in full-year 2025 revenue with a $72.5 million profit, after a $50.8 million loss in 2024.

50.1 million monthly active users as of July 31, 2026.

90.1 billion transactions worth $558 billion in the 12 months to June 30, 2026.

About 88% of 2025 revenue came from Nigeria. The rest came from markets including Indonesia and Egypt.

Put simply, this is mostly a Nigerian business in an offshore corporate jacket. OPay's holding company is registered in the Cayman Islands and headquartered in Singapore, and it is controlled by Chinese billionaire Zhou Yahui, who also chairs browser company Opera.

Why the shift to lending matters

OPay launched in 2018 with super-app ambitions, including motorbike taxis and food delivery, before narrowing down to financial services. Reports on the filing say lending is now its largest source of income, ahead of payments. That helps explain the profit jump. Moving money is cheap and fiercely competitive. Lending pays far better, as long as borrowers repay.

It also brings new risks for investors to price in. Most of OPay's revenue is earned in naira, while its New York shares will trade in dollars, so a sharp naira slide would shrink its reported results. Loan repayment rates and Nigerian lending rules will matter more than ever.

What this means for Nigerians

If you use OPay, nothing changes in your account because of this filing. What changes is visibility: a listed OPay must publish regular audited financial reports, giving customers, POS agents and the CBN a public look at how much of its money comes from loans. A successful listing would make OPay the first fintech with mostly Nigerian customers to list in the US, which could warm global investors back up to Nigerian startups after funding dropped sharply in September. If you want to own the shares, you will need a platform that offers US stocks, and you will pay in dollars, not naira.

What to watch next

The price range and share count, which will show how much OPay plans to raise.

The listing date, which Semafor expects around mid-November.

Whether OPay formally applies to Nigeria's SEC and the Nigerian Exchange for the Lagos listing.

How investors respond. Earlier African listings in New York, such as Jumia, have had mixed results.

Sources: Reuters via Bizcommunity, Semafor via The Next Web, The Rio Times, TechCity, The Paypers