Huge news for the African tech space just dropped: OPay, Nigeria’s leading payments platform, is officially gearing up to go public in the United States.
According to insiders, the SoftBank-backed super app is bringing out the big guns. They’ve tapped Wall Street heavyweights Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, and JPMorgan Chase to lead the planned Initial Public Offering (IPO).
Here is what we know right now:
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Target Valuation: A massive $4 billion.
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The Timeline: The share sale is tentatively slated for later in 2026, though the exact timing and size of the offering are still fluid.
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Behind the Scenes: OPay is already laying the groundwork for Wall Street. They recently brought on seasoned international executives including a former Citigroup managing director as CFO to ensure they meet the strict governance and transparency standards required of a US-listed company.
Why This is a Big Deal
This move is a massive milestone for Nigeria’s digital finance sector. OPay has grown at breakneck speed, evolving from its early days in ride-hailing into a financial super app serving tens of millions of users. They are proving that incredible growth in mobile money and embedded finance is entirely possible, even in the face of macroeconomic hurdles.
If they pull this off, an OPay IPO wouldn’t just be one of the largest by an African tech company in recent memory it could break the dam, paving the way for other African fintech heavyweights like Flutterwave and Moniepoint to make their own Wall Street debuts.
The Caveat: Sources caution that these plans are still in their early stages. Everything could shift depending on market conditions, and OPay hasn’t officially filed the paperwork with US regulators just yet. Unsurprisingly, the banks involved have declined to comment.
Stay tuned as this story develops.