How OPay lent $1.5 billion in one year

You know OPay for transfers. But in the twelve months to June 2026, it disbursed more than $1.5 billion in loans in Nigeria. How did a payments app build a lending business this big? The answer starts with the money customers keep in their wallets and what their everyday transactions reveal about them. We unpack how OPay decides who gets a loan, where the money comes from, and what happens when borrowers don’t repay. It’s a story about a gap Nigeria’s banks left open, the fintechs that stepped in, and the cost of lending at extraordinary scale. Subscribe to Notadeepdive for more stories about how business works in Nigeria.