Two Chinese-backed fintech companies OPay and PalmPay have amassed about 85 million users in Nigeria, reshaping Africa’s retail banking landscape and forcing the country’s biggest lenders to spend billions of naira on technology as they battle to defend their dominance.
The two digital finance platforms, which entered Nigeria in 2018 and 2019 respectively, have risen from start-ups to become two of Africa’s largest customer-facing financial institutions. Together they now serve almost as many users as Nigeria’s biggest banks, highlighting how smartphones, agent networks and low-cost digital services are changing the continent’s financial system.
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A BusinessDay ranking of Africa’s largest banks and financial institutions by customer numbers shows Access Bank leading the continent with 60 million customers, followed jointly by OPay and United Bank for Africa (UBA) with 45 million each. Commercial Bank of Ethiopia ranks fourth with 44.9 million, while FirstBank has 43 million customers. PalmPay follows with 40 million, ahead of Zenith Bank with 36.7 million, GTBank with 32.8 million, Capitec Bank of South Africa with 25 million, and Equity Bank of Kenya with 22.7 million.
