The fintech generated $236.12 million from $927.6 million in loans originated in Nigeria, according to its public offering prospectus, but set aside $118.36 million for expected credit losses, equivalent to $1.28 for every $10 lent.
Expected credit-loss expenses increased 210.3% to $118.36 million, significantly outpacing the 167.9% growth in lending income. These expenses represent amounts the company estimates it may not recover from borrowers, and their faster growth relative to revenue signals that credit risk is expanding alongside the loan book.
OPay also wrote off $113.15 million in loans it considered uncollectible, a 520.5% increase from a year earlier. The six-month amount exceeded $69.95 million written off throughout all of 2025, meaning the company cleared more bad debt in six months than in the entire preceding year.
Separately, borrowers were late repaying $113.80 million in outstanding loans and interest as of June 30. That represented 27.4% of the $415.33 million owed to OPay, more than a quarter of the outstanding balance.
New loans issued in Nigeria more than tripled to $927.63 million in the first half of 2026 from $305.12 million a year earlier. The number of unique borrowers per quarter also increased, rising from 3.5 million to 6.7 million, a near-doubling of the active borrower base in a single year.
The credit-loss charges absorbed 25.3% of total revenue, compared with 19.3% a year earlier. Put differently, OPay recognized approximately $25 in expected credit losses for every $100 of revenue, up from about $19 in the corresponding period of 2025.
Lenders must price loans to cover defaults, funding, and operating costs, with borrowers who repay on time potentially bearing part of the cost of lending to those who do not. The company classifies loans that are 90 days past due as non-performing and charges them off at 120 days past due.
OPay writes loans off at 120 days past due, while conventional banks do not classify loans as losses until 360 days. A loan OPay has already cleared from its books could sit on a bank’s balance sheet for another eight months, which makes a straight comparison tricky.
OPay reported a non-performing loan ratio of 4.3% as of June 30, 2026, compared with 8.03% for the banking industry, which itself sits above the prudential threshold of 5%.
That improvement is partly due to the company shifting its credit mix away from riskier consumer loans toward merchant lending. In the first half of 2026, OPay disbursed $99.0 million in merchant loans across 20,000 transactions, generating $8.8 million in revenue. The company said it “tightened risk appetite in consumer loans” and shifted toward merchant loans, which carry a lower risk profile, according to the filing.
OPay also cautioned that its provisions might not be sufficient to cover future credit losses. “As these factors are largely beyond our control and there is no infallible method for predicting credit losses, we cannot guarantee that our provisions for expected credit loss will be sufficient,” the prospectus said.
OPay warns that poor data, changing borrower behavior, fraud, and model drift can weaken its predictions and increase credit losses. The company noted in the prospectus that its credit-scoring models rely on alternative data sources, including transaction history and mobile usage patterns, rather than traditional credit bureau records, which are limited in Nigeria.
Revenue reached $467.1 million in the first half of 2026, up from $197.5 million a year earlier, an increase of 136%. Net profit more than quadrupled to $90.9 million. The company became profitable in 2025 after reporting a $50.8 million loss in 2024.
OPay has filed for a proposed US initial public offering, with Stanbic Africa Holdings Limited, a member of Standard Bank Group, agreeing to invest up to $200 million in the fintech ahead of the listing. The scale of OPay’s loan losses will now be scrutinized by international investors assessing the durability of those profits as the company pursues its New York IPO.
