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OPay, PalmPay top most popular fintech apps among Nigerians – Report

Nigerians tap Opay, PalmPay, Moniepoint amid banks’ IT glitch

OPay, PalmPay, and Over Wallet have emerged as the most popular fintech apps for the month of July, according to a report from StatiSense.

StatiSense added that Newcredit, OKash, Palmcredit, OPay Business, FairMoney, Moniepoint, and EaseMoni made up the top 10 most popular apps that Nigerians cannot get enough of.

Though the statistical company fell short in providing details on the number of new customers-to-business, number of customer engagements, volume, and value of transactions carried out by these companies, it, however, based its findings on data sourced from SimilarWeb, a digital intelligence company quoted on the New York Stock Exchange.

In early 2023, when the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) introduced a restriction on cash limits for Nigerians, a situation that mounted a lot of pressure on the ICT infrastructure of all the commercial banks, most of the fintech companies benefited from the chaos as they experienced an upsurge in customer ombudding and engagement.

PalmPay, Opay, and Moniepoint became commonplace and have since been experiencing growth in new customer sign-ins and engagement. This was helped by the poor service delivery witnessed by most of the commercial banks until the CBN opted to extend its deadline for a full transition to a cashless economy to December 2023.

Read also: Moniepoint, Opay eye expansion as market booms

In a July 2023 report by BusinessDay titled “How two Chinese fintechs dominated Nigeria’s PoS arena,” it was revealed that OPay took the Point of Sale (PoS) throne with an awe-inspiring 563,262 agents. PalmPay thundered onto the scene, unveiling a triumphant PoS army of 500,000 agents. The icing on the fintech cake? A staggering 2 million banking and mobile money agents, as revealed by the 2023 State of the Industry Report on Mobile Money.

Both companies accounted for at least 50 percent of the agency banking market in Nigeria, as the report has shown.

According to Statista, the digital payment market in Nigeria is estimated to be around $17 billion in 2023, a situation that strategically positions these fintech companies to take most of these monies.

It was reported that digital payments will account for 17.3 percent of transaction value change by segment in 2023.

Just five months ago, Opay crossed the 30 million customer milestone, a remarkable achievement for a firm that has been in the financial banking space for less than five years in Africa’s biggest economy.

Reacting to this report on Twitter, most opinions gathered showed that the leading companies strides have been well appreciated and valued, especially during the turbulent times when commercial banks faced challenges meeting customers online transaction demands.

“Opay remains the best choice for business,” Enado said. Another respondent, Maxi, said, “No, be lie. I have used Opay like five times this morning.”

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