OPay’s $72m Profit: The Gaps, Risks and Losses Hidden in the IPO Numbers

OPay’s reported $72.47 million profit may look like a spectacular turnaround, but a closer reading of the financial figures raises serious questions about the quality, concentration and sustainability of the fintech’s earnings as it prepares for a potential United States initial public offering.

The company moved from a $50.98 million loss to a $72.47 million net profit, while revenue surged 161 percent to $536.25 million.

But the headline profit does not tell the entire story.

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Behind the impressive numbers are several significant gaps including OPay’s overwhelming dependence on Nigeria, explosive growth in lending, the huge difference between transaction value and actual revenue, and the absence in the figures provided of several details investors would need to properly assess the company’s underlying risk.

$72m profit, but Nigeria is carrying the business

One of the biggest weaknesses in OPay’s numbers is geographical concentration.

Nigeria accounted for 88.1 percent of OPay’s entire 2025 revenue.

That leaves the company heavily exposed to one market despite its presence in other countries.

In other words, OPay may present itself as a multinational fintech, but the revenue numbers tell a different story: Nigeria remains overwhelmingly responsible for the business.

Any major regulatory, economic, currency or consumer-spending shock in Nigeria could therefore have an outsized impact on the company’s financial performance.

That concentration is a major issue for investors assessing a proposed $4 billion valuation.

The $358bn transaction figure can hide the real picture

OPay processed an extraordinary $358 billion in gross transaction value, up 115 percent.

But GTV is not revenue.

The company generated $536.25 million in revenue from that enormous transaction ecosystem.

That means the enormous amount of money moving through the platform should not automatically be interpreted as money OPay earned.

The critical unanswered questions include:

How much does OPay actually earn per transaction? What does it spend to generate that revenue? How much goes to partners and payment infrastructure providers? And how much of the transaction volume translates into sustainable profit?

Without those details, the $358 billion figure risks creating a much bigger impression of financial strength than the company’s actual retained earnings justify.

Lending exploded by 285 percent and so did the risk

Perhaps the biggest red flag buried in the growth figures is lending.

OPay originated $938.3 million in new loans, representing a staggering 285 percent increase.

Rapid loan expansion can increase revenue, but it also increases exposure to defaults and credit losses.

The critical information missing from the headline numbers is the quality of those loans.

What is OPay’s current non-performing loan ratio?

How much has been written off?

How much has been provisioned against potentially bad loans?

What percentage of borrowers are repeatedly borrowing to repay existing obligations?

And what happens to profitability if repayment performance deteriorates?

Until those questions are properly answered, the 285 percent increase in loan origination should be viewed not simply as growth, but as a rapidly expanding risk exposure.

More borrowers does not automatically mean more quality

OPay’s quarterly unique borrowers in Nigeria more than doubled to 4.6 million.

Again, the number is impressive.

But a growing borrower population creates a corresponding obligation to demonstrate that the lending portfolio remains healthy.

A fintech can increase the number of borrowers while simultaneously increasing its exposure to delinquency.

The real test is therefore not how many people received loans, but how much of the money is coming back, how quickly it is coming back and how much OPay ultimately loses when borrowers fail to repay.

The profit turnaround needs deeper examination

OPay’s operating income swung from a $35.1 million deficit in 2024 to a $107.1 million profit, while non-GAAP EBITDA moved from a $33.6 million loss to $113.2 million profit.

That is a dramatic turnaround.

But the $113.2 million EBITDA figure is explicitly non-GAAP, while the $72.47 million net profit is the audited bottom-line figure.

For a prospective public company, investors will need to scrutinise the reconciliation between the two measures and determine what adjustments underpin the non-GAAP result.

A strong EBITDA number cannot by itself establish that earnings are durable.

Cash improved but cash alone does not eliminate risk

OPay’s cash balance increased 162 percent to $274.3 million, while operating cash flow reached $152.2 million.

That is positive from a liquidity perspective.

But the business is also expanding rapidly into lending and multiple financial products.

The relevant question is therefore whether the company’s cash generation can keep pace with the capital required to support its growth, credit exposure, technology infrastructure, regulatory obligations and expansion.

A large cash balance today does not guarantee that the same level of liquidity will remain available after aggressive expansion.

The biggest lacuna: what does the $4bn valuation really rest on?

Reports in May 2026 indicated that OPay was preparing for a US IPO at a targeted valuation of approximately $4 billion, with JPMorgan, Citi and Deutsche Bank reportedly involved in the preparations.

That makes the unanswered questions even more important.

If OPay is seeking a multibillion-dollar public valuation, investors will want considerably more than a spectacular one-year turnaround.

They will want evidence of:

– Sustainable profitability;
– Loan-book quality;
– Default and write-off levels;
– Revenue concentration by country;
– Customer acquisition costs;
– Transaction margins;
– Regulatory and compliance costs;
– Foreign-exchange exposure;
– Profitability of individual products;
– Sustainability of the 2025 revenue surge; and
– The extent to which future growth depends on continued aggressive lending.

The real weakness may be hidden behind the growth

OPay’s 2025 numbers demonstrate extraordinary expansion, but they also reveal a business becoming increasingly large and complex.

Revenue grew 161 percent.

GTV grew 115 percent.

Loan origination grew 285 percent.

Users grew 57 percent.

Those numbers look impressive individually.

But rapid expansion creates a fundamental question:

Can OPay maintain the same quality of earnings when the business is no longer growing at extraordinary rates?

That is the issue the IPO market will ultimately have to examine.

The $72.47 million profit is real according to the figures provided, but it should not be treated as proof that all of OPay’s underlying risks have disappeared.

The company has moved dramatically from a loss-making position to profitability.

Yet its dependence on Nigeria, rapidly expanding lending exposure and the limited detail in the headline figures leave substantial questions around how much risk sits behind the growth and how much of the reported success can actually be sustained.

For OPay, the biggest challenge may no longer be proving that it can make money.

It may be proving that the money it is making is durable, diversified and strong enough to justify the valuation investors are being asked to accept.