Before they were chasing billion-dollar valuations on Wall Street and in Hong Kong, OPay and PalmPay were two Chinese-backed apps fighting for space on Nigerian smartphones. Their rise from local payment tools to Africa’s most valuable fintech platforms is one of the continent’s defining startup stories, and understanding that journey explains why both companies are now eyeing international stock exchanges.
OPay: From Super App to Payments Powerhouse
OPay launched in Nigeria in 2018, licensed by the Central Bank of Nigeria and insured by the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation. It was founded by Chinese entrepreneur Zhou Yahui, the billionaire behind Opera, and backed early on by SoftBank Vision Fund, Sequoia Capital, and Meituan’s venture arm, Long-Z Capital.
It started life as a sprawling super app, bundling ride-hailing, food delivery, and e-commerce alongside payments. When those side bets failed to gain traction, OPay pivoted hard into pure-play financial services: payments, transfers, savings, loans, and point-of-sale services for agents.
That pivot paid off. OPay now serves more than 50 million users through over 500,000 agents nationwide, processing upward of $12 billion in transactions every month. Full-year 2025 revenue reportedly reached $614.8 million. The company has stated ambitions to serve 1 billion users and 10 million merchants by 2031.
Ahead of its US IPO push, OPay strengthened its leadership bench, bringing in a former Citigroup managing director as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and appointing former Opera CEO Lars Boilesen as co-CEO for international expansion and regulatory work, a clear signal that going public requires governance maturity, not just user growth.
PalmPay: Riding the Transsion Smartphone Wave
PalmPay launched a year later, in 2019, with a different growth engine: hardware distribution. As a product of Transsion Holdings, parent company of Africa’s dominant smartphone brands TECNO, Infinix, and Itel, PalmPay had the rare advantage of being pre-installed on millions of devices sold across the continent. That distribution muscle, paired with a $40 million seed round from Chinese investors including Transsion, NetEase, and MediaTek, and a later $100 million Series A from AfricInvest and others, helped PalmPay scale quickly.
Today, PalmPay offers payments, transfers, savings, credit, insurance, and merchant services to more than 35 million registered users and roughly 1 million business customers, through both its consumer app and its PalmPartner merchant platform. It has expanded beyond Nigeria into Tanzania, Ghana, South Africa, Côte d’Ivoire, Uganda, and Bangladesh, positioning itself as one of Africa’s fastest-growing digital financial services providers.
OPay and PalmPay: Rivals on Parallel Tracks
OPay and PalmPay have spent years competing head-to-head for the same Nigerian merchants, agents, and everyday users across payments, agent banking, and point-of-sale terminals. A new Central Bank of Nigeria directive requiring POS agents to work with only one financial institution is expected to sharpen that rivalry further, likely favoring OPay’s larger existing agent base.
Now their competition has moved to the world stage: OPay chasing a $4 billion valuation on a US exchange with Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, and JPMorgan Chase as advisers, and PalmPay exploring a Hong Kong Stock Exchange listing alongside a fresh $200 million funding round.
Why OPay and PalmPay’s Journey Matters Beyond Nigeria
Both companies’ trajectories, from scrappy, Chinese-backed local apps to IPO contenders, are being watched as a referendum on investor appetite for African digital finance, particularly with rival Flutterwave pausing its own listing plans.
Their success would validate a model built on financial inclusion for the unbanked, agent-driven distribution, and mobile-first design, potentially opening the door for other African fintechs to pursue similar international listings rather than settling for acquisition exits.
However, this does not favour the Nigerian economy, which serves as the backbone and foundation of the two giant fintechs.
