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By Ugochukwu Sylvester Ugwuanyi
Nigeria’s financial inclusion story is increasingly being written on mobile phones, and OPay believes its own growth offers a window into how that transformation is changing the way millions of Nigerians access financial services.
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The fintech company has welcomed findings from the 2026 Access to Financial Services in Nigeria (A2F) Survey, which show that 79 per cent of Nigerian adults—about 94.2 million people—now use at least one financial product or service.
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For OPay, the numbers are evidence of a wider shift it says has been driven by technology, digital payments and the expansion of financial services beyond traditional banking channels.
Speaking to IT Edge News.Africa, OPay Chief Operating Officer (COO) and Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Dotun Adekunle, attributed a significant part of the growth to digital financial platforms such as OPay.
“These numbers are largely due to the efforts of a company like OPay,” Adekunle said, pointing to the platform’s adoption among ride-hailing drivers, artisans, young people and consumers across different income groups.
Financial Inclusion Moves Beyond Traditional Banking
The 2026 A2F survey, designed by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and based on responses from 18,679 adults across Nigeria’s 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, captures the accelerating shift towards formal and digital financial services.
According to the survey figures supplied, formal financial inclusion rose from 64 per cent in 2023 to 73 per cent in 2026, representing about 87.2 million adults.
That figure exceeded the 70 per cent target established under the National Financial Inclusion Strategy (NFIS) for the period.
Digital financial services recorded an even sharper increase, rising from 45 per cent in 2023 to 64 per cent in 2026. The survey estimates that about 77 million adults now use digital channels to receive income, make payments or send money.
For fintech companies, the significance of the numbers lies not simply in the number of bank accounts or digital wallets created, but in how financial transactions are becoming embedded in everyday life.
OPay Sees Its Footprint in the Numbers
Adekunle said OPay’s customer base cuts across different sections of Nigerian society, including people traditionally underserved by conventional financial institutions.
“Most drivers of ride-hailing services, artisans and people at the base of the pyramid use our product,” he said.
He added that OPay is also increasingly used by young people on university campuses, as well as consumers in middle- and higher-income segments.
That broadening user base is central to OPay’s argument that digital financial platforms are helping to narrow the gap between Nigerians who have traditionally enjoyed easy access to formal financial services and those who have struggled to obtain them.
The ‘Democratisation’ of Financial Services
Adekunle described OPay’s approach as an attempt to “democratise access to finance” through technology.
“What we have done is to make financial services more inclusive using technology to break the divide and democratise access to finance,” he said.
The idea is relatively straightforward: access to a financial service should not depend primarily on where a person lives, their income category or the type of mobile device they use.
According to Adekunle, OPay wants customers across the economic spectrum to have access to a comparable quality of financial service.
For Nigeria, where millions of consumers interact with the financial system primarily through mobile devices, that proposition has significant implications.
The rise of digital wallets, mobile payments and fintech platforms has effectively shifted part of the country’s financial infrastructure from bank branches to smartphones and agent networks.
OPay Says Reliability Is Its Competitive Advantage
OPay also attributes its growth to what Adekunle described as a strong emphasis on transaction reliability and customer experience.
He said the company operates around a “customer first” philosophy, arguing that the principle goes beyond corporate messaging.
“We look at the needs of the customers. We make sure that the payment services are fast. They are reliable,” he said.
Adekunle argued that products also have to reflect the realities of the markets in which they operate, particularly in a country as diverse as Nigeria.
He said OPay’s technology, operations, people and product development have been designed around reducing transaction failures and improving availability.
“The reason why Nigerians use OPay is because transactions hardly fail,” he said, attributing this to the company’s technology, products, operations and evolution.
Security Becomes Central to Digital Finance
As financial services move increasingly onto digital platforms, convenience has brought a corresponding demand for stronger cybersecurity and data protection.
Adekunle said OPay has invested heavily in security and described the platform as compliant with the Nigerian Data Protection Act.
He also said OPay had largely achieved data localisation and maintained safeguards designed to limit unauthorised access to customer information.
The company uses additional authentication measures for transactions it identifies as unusual or potentially risky.
Adekunle pointed to instances in which users may be required to provide facial recognition or biometric confirmation for certain transactions, particularly those taking place at unusual times or outside normal transaction patterns.
He said these measures are intended to provide additional protection against fraud and unauthorised activity.
Adekunle further stated that OPay had not experienced a breach of its systems. That is a statement from the company and should be understood as such rather than as an independently audited assessment of its security posture.
Fintechs and Banks: Competitors or Partners?
The rapid growth of fintechs has inevitably raised questions about their relationship with conventional commercial banks.
Adekunle, however, rejected the idea that OPay views banks as competitors that must be displaced.
Instead, he described banks and fintech companies as increasingly interdependent parts of the same financial ecosystem.
“As OPay, we partner and collaborate with the normal banks. We don’t see commercial banks as enemies or obstacles to our progress; neither are we obstacles to theirs,” he said.
His argument is that each side brings infrastructure, reach or technology that the other needs.
“There is no fintech that can survive without the banks, and there is no bank that can reach the market without the fintechs. It’s impossible!” he said.
That relationship is becoming particularly important as financial transactions increasingly move between banks, fintech platforms, payment switches, digital wallets and other technology-enabled financial services.
Nigeria’s Fintech Ecosystem Keeps Evolving
Adekunle said Nigeria’s fintech ecosystem has become stronger as regulators, infrastructure providers and technology companies have developed new ways of delivering financial services.
He argued that the combination of new products, technology and regulatory interventions has helped create a more resilient financial environment.
The next stage, he believes, will be shaped heavily by artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies.
“With the advent of AI and other new technologies, things will even get much better than it is today,” he said.
For fintech operators, AI is increasingly being applied to areas such as fraud detection, customer service, risk management, personalisation and transaction monitoring.
The technology could therefore extend the digital financial inclusion gains already being recorded by making financial services more automated and responsive.
Regulation Has Helped Shape the Fintech Boom
OPay also credits Nigeria’s regulatory environment for helping create the conditions for the expansion of digital financial services.
Adekunle described regulators as partners in the development of the fintech industry and pointed to initiatives such as the Bank Verification Number (BVN) and National Identification Number (NIN), alongside Central Bank of Nigeria requirements around financial-sector accountability.
“Much of the success we see today in the fintech ecosystem in Nigeria is largely due to favourable policies that allow things to happen,” he said.
He argued that identity infrastructure and regulatory requirements have helped create greater accountability across banks and fintech companies.
“Without instituting the BVN or the NIN or CBN forcing responsibility among banks and fintechs, we will not be where we are today,” he added.
Financial Inclusion Is Now About Usage, Not Just Access
The latest A2F figures point to an important change in Nigeria’s financial inclusion journey.
The question is no longer simply whether Nigerians have access to a bank account or financial product. Increasingly, the issue is whether those services are affordable, reliable, secure and useful enough to become part of everyday economic activity.
That is where OPay sees its opportunity.
Its argument is that the combination of mobile technology, digital payments, agent networks and locally adapted products can bring financial services to people who may never have found traditional banking convenient or accessible.
But the growth of fintech also raises new responsibilities around data protection, cybersecurity, consumer protection and the reliability of digital financial infrastructure.
From Financial Access to Digital Financial Participation
Nigeria’s 94.2 million financially included adults represent more than a statistic. They represent consumers, workers, traders, students, artisans and businesses increasingly participating in the formal financial economy through digital channels.
OPay wants to be identified as one of the companies helping to drive that transition.
Its “democratisation” narrative reflects the broader promise of fintech: that technology can reduce the practical barriers separating Nigerians from payments, savings, transfers and other financial services.
Whether individual fintech companies deserve a particular share of the national inclusion gains is ultimately a matter that requires broader evidence than a single company’s adoption figures.
What the A2F data does establish, according to the figures cited by OPay, is that financial inclusion and digital financial service usage are expanding significantly.
The next challenge for Nigeria’s fintech ecosystem will be turning that access into sustained financial participation—while ensuring that speed, convenience and innovation are matched by security, accountability and consumer trust.
