If you have paid a POS agent, a food vendor or a friend in Nigeria this year, there is a good chance the money moved through OPay. Now the green app on millions of Nigerian phones wants Wall Street to put a price on that habit.
OPay filed a registration statement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on 9 October 2026. It wants to list American depositary shares on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker OPAY. The filing also reveals something the company has kept quiet for years: OPay is now properly profitable.
In the first half of 2026, OPay made $90.9 million in net profit on $467.1 million in revenue. A year earlier, it made $21.7 million on $197.5 million.
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The Numbers Behind the Filing
The turnaround is sharp. In 2024, OPay lost $50.8 million on revenue of $205.7 million. In 2025, revenue more than doubled to $536.3 million and the company swung to a $72.5 million profit. The first six months of 2026 have already beaten the whole of 2025 on profit.
The user base explains a lot of it. According to the filing, OPay had 50.1 million monthly active users and 26.8 million daily active users as of 31 July 2026. Its gross transaction value, which counts payments, transfers and loans processed on the platform, reached $558 billion in the 12 months to June 2026.
OPay operates in Nigeria, Egypt, Pakistan and Indonesia, but the filing is clear about where the business really lives: most of its operations, cash and loan book sit in Nigeria. The company is headquartered in Singapore and incorporated in the Cayman Islands, which is common for companies listing in New York.
Standard Bank Wants In
One detail stands out. Stanbic Africa Holdings, part of South Africa's Standard Bank Group, has agreed to buy OPay shares in a private deal that runs alongside the IPO. The investment is capped at $200 million, cannot take Stanbic above a 4.99% stake, and the shares are locked for 12 months.
Standard Bank is also one of the banks running the listing, alongside Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, CICC, B. Riley Securities and Needham & Company. When Africa's biggest bank by assets puts its own money into a Nigerian fintech's listing, it sends a strong signal to other investors.
The filing does not yet show how many shares OPay will sell or at what price. Local reports have put the target valuation near $4 billion, double the $2 billion OPay was valued at when it raised $400 million in 2021. That figure will only be confirmed when the price range is set.
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Can Nigerians Buy OPay Shares?
Not yet, and not directly in Lagos for now. The filing says OPay's board and shareholders have approved a secondary listing on the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) after the New York listing, subject to market conditions and regulatory approval. No date has been set.
If it happens, Nigerian investors could own a piece of an app they already use every day, without opening a US brokerage account. OPay itself warns that shares in Lagos and the ADSs in New York may not be easy to swap, so prices and trading activity could differ between the two markets.
There are risks in the fine print too. OPay lists naira volatility, changing regulation, cybersecurity threats and tough competition as key concerns. It also says it does not plan to pay dividends any time soon, so early investors would be betting on growth, not payouts.
Why This Matters Beyond OPay
For years, the story of Nigerian fintech has been about funding rounds, valuations and layoffs. This filing is different. It puts audited numbers in public, shows a Nigerian-built payments business making real money, and tests whether global investors will pay for it.
It also lands in the same week Airtel Money began trading in London. Two of Africa's biggest mobile money companies are now heading to global stock markets in the same week.
OPay has proven that Nigerians will trust an app with their daily money. The IPO will show whether New York trusts OPay with theirs.
