Standard Bank Group plans to invest up to $ 200 million, about R3.4 billion, in OPay, the Nigerian-focused digital payments company, as OPay prepares to list on the New York Stock Exchange.

Stanbic Africa Holdings, a Standard Bank company, will buy shares in a private placement alongside the initial public offering, subject to the listing going ahead and regulatory approvals. The figure comes from OPay's filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Standard Bank announced the agreement without disclosing the amount.

The investment is capped at whichever is lowest of $ 200 million, 0.98% of Standard Bank's qualifying regulatory capital, or the amount needed for a 4.99% stake at the IPO price, and Standard Bank cannot sell the shares for 12 months.

OPay's numbers explain the interest. It made $ 536.3 million in revenue in 2025, about R9.1 billion, up from $ 205.7 million in 2024, and swung from a $50.8 million loss to $ 72.5 million in profit. In the first half of 2026, revenue more than doubled again to $ 467.1 million, with net income of $ 90.9 million.

It had 50.1 million monthly active users at the end of July, processed $ 339.1 billion in transactions in six months, and its users made up about 66% of all active users of financial apps tracked in Nigeria.

Nigeria is also its main risk, at 89.5% of revenue, and OPay warns that regulators could restrict it from signing up new customers in some markets. The two companies have also signed a non-binding agreement to explore combining Standard Bank's banking infrastructure with OPay's app and merchant network, covering digital banking, payments, lending and remittances. Standard Bank's role is wider than investor.

It is one of four lead underwriters for the listing, alongside Citigroup, Deutsche Bank and China International Capital Corporation, and Lungisa Fuzile, chief executive of its Africa Regions business and a former director-general of National Treasury, is expected to join OPay's board.

BusinessDay Nigeria's Royal Ibeh reported the filing details, including Standard Bank chief executive Sim Tshabalala saying the two companies see potential to expand access to financial services and support cross-border commerce across Africa. Its earlier coverage reported OPay's plans for a secondary listing in Lagos as its US ambitions grew. BusinessDay also reported Airtel Money starting to trade in London this week, another large African fintech going to an offshore exchange.

Standard Bank already operates in Nigeria through Stanbic IBTC. What it does not have is 50 million people opening its app every month. Rather than try to build that, it is buying a stake in the company that did, and lining up a route to sell its own products through OPay's app. That is the same shift we described in the Botswana inclusion piece: customers reach financial services through payments apps first, and banks increasingly sit behind them.

The structure is worth noting too. Standard Bank is investing, helping run the listing as an underwriter and taking a board seat, which is common in deals like this but means it gains from the IPO in more than one way. For South African fintechs, the takeaway is where the money and the listings are going. Airtel Money has just started trading in London and OPay is heading for New York, while our own exchange is running pilots to find companies to list.

You might also like our piece on the shake-up of SA's payment system, Standard Bank's responsible AI framework, and Discovery Bank's first full-year profit.

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