OPay scrapped its $304 million New York listing on Friday, the day its shares were due to start trading. The SoftBank-backed Nigerian fintech blamed a regulatory inquiry in a foreign jurisdiction it refused to name. The OPay IPO never traded, so the offering never closed and the company never collected the money.
Friday at the NYSE: Priced, Rung In, Then Halted
OPay priced 16 million American depositary shares at $19 each, the bottom of its $19 to $21 range, valuing the company at about $4 billion, according to Reuters reporting carried by DealStreetAsia. Executives rang the opening bell that morning. Co-chief executive Lars Boilesen told the ceremony that OPay was proud to be the first Nigerian fintech to list on the exchange, The Intercept reported.
The celebration did not last. Bloomberg indicated the shares would open between $16.25 and $16.75, Nairametrics reported, both below the offer price. The NYSE then halted the stock at 3:30 p.m. in New York with news pending, and no trades had executed.
OPay and its underwriters agreed to terminate the underwriting agreement dated October 29. The company said the offering will not be completed. Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, Standard Bank and CICC were among the banks involved.
The Regulatory Inquiry OPay Has Not Explained
OPay called the jurisdiction “immaterial” to its core operations. It did not name the regulator, the country or the subject of the inquiry. The company says it expects a satisfactory resolution soon, and it insists the probe reflects nothing about its finances, operations or regulatory standing.
Those assurances leave an obvious gap. OPay runs services in Nigeria, Indonesia, Egypt and Pakistan, and it has not said whether the unnamed jurisdiction is one of them. That label is also the company’s own judgment, not a regulator’s finding. If the inquiry truly does not matter to the business, it clearly mattered to the deal.
A Weak Market Complicates the Story
Reuters noted that numerous companies worldwide have delayed listings in recent weeks as stubborn inflation and a selloff in AI-related stocks weigh on sentiment. Nairametrics reported that the Nasdaq 100 fell 3.5% on Friday, its worst day since early June. OPay’s shares were indicated below their offer price before the halt.
OPay ties its decision solely to the inquiry, and TechMoonshot has seen no evidence that market conditions drove it. Still, the two explanations sit uncomfortably close together. The statements reported so far give no detail on how the inquiry changed the underwriters’ calculus.
What the Filing Says About OPay’s Business
The numbers OPay put in front of investors were strong. Its filing shows revenue rose 137% to $467 million in the first half of 2026, with net income of about $91 million, TNW reported. Lending is now the biggest revenue source, ahead of payments. Nearly nine-tenths of revenue comes from Nigeria.
OPay also reported about 50 million monthly active users as of July 31. Nairametrics reported gross transaction value of $358 billion in 2025, up from $166.2 billion a year earlier.
Concentration cuts both ways. It supports OPay’s argument that a foreign inquiry touches little of its revenue. It also means public investors were buying a lending business that leans on one market and its regulators.
Chinese billionaire Zhou Yahui controls the company, TNW reported, and OPay raised $570 million between 2018 and 2021 from investors led by SoftBank. SoftBank entities held 6.6% before the offering. SoftBank did not immediately respond to Reuters.
Standard Bank, Lagos and SoftBank Now Wait
Standard Bank’s Africa arm agreed to invest up to $200 million in a concurrent private placement, capped at a 4.99% stake. Its Africa head, Lungisa Fuzile, was expected to join OPay’s board, according to TNW. Nairametrics reported that OPay’s board and shareholders had approved a secondary Nigerian Exchange listing to follow the NYSE debut.
The filing also warned that Lagos shares might not be swappable with New York shares. With the primary offering terminated, reports so far do not say what happens to the placement or the Nigerian listing. Both were built on the New York debut.
Standard Bank sits on both sides of the deal, as underwriter and as the placement investor. Nigerian investors who expected a home-market route into OPay stock now have none. SoftBank, meanwhile, holds a stake that lost its most visible path to a public-market price.
Nigerian Regulators Have Tested OPay Before
The Central Bank of Nigeria told OPay and other fintechs in April 2024 to stop onboarding new customers over know-your-customer concerns. It lifted the restriction in June 2024 after a May 31 compliance deadline, BusinessDay reported. Nothing in the reporting links that episode to the current foreign inquiry. OPay says its Nigerian regulatory standing is intact.
Public-market investors will still ask for the full compliance record before they return. Trust is the other exposure. In September, OPay denied a viral post claiming it would suspend operations from September 1, The Intercept reported.
A payments app with tens of millions of users cannot leave a withdrawal unexplained for long. Rumours fill silence fast.
What to Watch After the Withdrawn Offering
Four questions will define the next few weeks. Will OPay name the jurisdiction and the regulator? Will it relaunch the offering, and at what price? What becomes of the Standard Bank placement and the Nigerian listing?
The fourth question reaches beyond OPay. Rivals such as Moniepoint, which closed a $200 million Series C last October, will study whether a US listing stays open to Nigerian fintechs. TNW described earlier African listings in New York, such as Jumia, as having mixed results.
OPay says it will update the market as material developments occur. The OPay IPO may return, but only if the company explains the inquiry and the market allows.
