In 2024, fintech platforms like OPay and PalmPay emerged as major winners in Nigeria’s financial sector, attracting a surge of customers seeking faster and more reliable transactions amid persistent banking system failures.
With traditional banks experiencing prolonged network outages, mobile money transactions saw an unprecedented 69.58% increase, reaching N79.55 trillion from N46.91 trillion in 2023, according to data from the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS).
Over the past four years, mobile transactions have skyrocketed by over 2,500%, with transaction volume rising by 28.74% in 2024 alone. This surge reflects growing customer preference for fintech solutions, even as banks remain dominant, processing N1.08 quadrillion in instant transfers out of the total N1.09 quadrillion in electronic transactions.
With banks struggling to keep pace, OPay and PalmPay have emerged as the most widely used alternatives. By March 2023, both apps topped Nigeria’s financial downloads, with OPay becoming the most downloaded app nationwide by October 2023.
Nigeria currently has 17 mobile money operators licensed by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), but OPay and PalmPay lead the sector. PalmPay’s Managing Director, Chika Nwosu, noted that the platform now serves 35 million customers, with 16 million active monthly users and a 99.5% success rate on transfers. OPay, with over 30 million users, credits its success to heavy investments in IT infrastructure, allowing it to expand transaction capacity faster than traditional banks.
“They made payments easier, faster, and more efficient, which is why people now rely on them for everyday transactions,” said Adedeji Olowe, founder of Lendsqr.
Some Nigerians now turn to banks only when necessary, a shift that became evident in October 2024, when several banks’ system upgrades left many customers unable to complete transactions.
