OPay’s ₦575 billion first-half revenue comes close to Nigerian banking giants – THIS END

The growing disruption of Nigeria’s banking sector by financial technology companies has taken a new turn, with OPay’s Nigerian operations generating around ₦575 billion in revenue in the first half of 2026, surpassing the gross profits reported by Wema Bank and narrowing the gap with some established banking groups.

A comparison released Saturday by data intelligence platform Statisense ranked OPay sixth among seven major financial institutions by revenue for the six months ended June 30, 2026.

According to the data, FirstHoldCo topped the chart with pre-tax profits of ₦1.93 trillion, equivalent to about $1.40 billion, just ahead of Zenith Bank, which recorded ₦1.90 trillion, or about $1.38 billion.

GTCO occupied the third position with ₦1.11 trillion, estimated at $805 million, while FCMB recorded ₦676.18 billion, equivalent to approximately $491 million.

Stanbic IBTC followed with ₦650.31 billion, or $473 million, ahead of OPay Nigeria’s ₦575 billion, or about $417.61 million.

Wema Bank ranked seventh among the institutions in comparison, with a gross profit of ₦415.09 billion, equivalent to about $302 million.

The ranking indicates that OPay’s Nigerian revenue was about 38.5% higher than Wema Bank’s (or about 1.4 times the lender’s gross earnings); although fintech remained below Stanbic IBTC and FCMB.

The comparison, however, requires an important qualification. The figures for listed banking institutions represent group-level measures of gross profits or revenue, while OPay’s figures relate to its operations in Nigeria.

The measures are therefore useful as an indication of scale, but should not be interpreted as a homogeneous comparison of the profitability or overall financial strength of institutions.

Statisense said the dollar equivalents were calculated using the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Nigerian foreign exchange market closing rate of ₦1,376 to a dollar on June 30, 2026.

Independent financial results reviewed by THEWILL support many of the figures in the ranking. FirstHoldCo reported pre-tax profits of ₦1.93 trillion for the first half of 2026, representing a 16.7% year-on-year increase, along with pre-tax profit of ₦653.5 billion.

Similarly, FCMB Group reported a pre-tax profit of ₦676.18 billion, up 27.8% from ₦529.2 billion in the corresponding period of 2025, while its profit before tax nearly doubled to ₦157.3 billion.

According to first-half data, Wema Bank recorded pre-tax profits of about ₦415.09 billion during the period, compared to about ₦303 billion a year earlier.

Beyond the headline ranking, OPay’s growth provides a striking indication of how quickly digital financial platforms are expanding in Nigeria and other markets.

Regulatory filings from OPay’s parent company showed that overall revenues increased significantly from $197.5 million in the first six months of 2025 to $467.1 million in the corresponding period of 2026.

Transaction-based revenue alone increased 86.9% from $69.9 million to $130.6 million, while the gross value of transactions on the OPay platform rose from $139.3 billion to $339.1 billion.

The company attributed the expansion in part to a rapidly growing user base. Daily active users on the OPay app increased from 17.6 million to 25.8 million during the period, alongside increased engagement from existing customers and the expansion of its merchant network.

The scale of these numbers highlights the structural change underway in Nigeria’s financial services sector, where digital platforms increasingly compete with banks for payments, transfers, business transactions, savings and other everyday financial services.

Traditional banks retain significant advantages, including large balance sheets, large deposit franchises, corporate banking, international trade activities, and loan portfolios.

But fintech companies have increasingly challenged their dominance in high-volume retail transactions by offering mobile-first services with fewer physical infrastructure requirements.

The traditional banking sector has not remained static. FCMB, for example, generated ₦89.1 billion from its digital payments, lending and wealth management businesses during the first half of 2026, representing 13.2% of its gross profits, as conventional financial institutions continued to invest heavily in technology.

Stanbic IBTC also reported total revenue of ₦544.3 billion for H1 2026, along with assets of ₦10.91 trillion and customer deposits of ₦4.62 trillion, demonstrating the larger financial scale that established banking groups continue to command.

The competition that is emerging is therefore no longer just between banks. It increasingly exposes conventional banking groups to technology-based financial platforms that can process huge volumes of transactions without maintaining similarly extensive physical branch networks.