Nigeria’s mobile money story is one of quiet transformation built not in glass towers, but through millions of small daily transactions happening across markets, bus parks, and neighborhoods.
What began as a push for financial inclusion has now become one of the country’s biggest fintech success stories, powered by smartphones and a fast-growing digital economy.
As affordable smartphones found their way into more Nigerian hands, mobile wallets became the simplest bridge between cash and convenience. The results have been staggering. Data from the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) shows that mobile money transactions hit N20.71 trillion($13.95 billion) in Q1 2025, a jump of 1,518% from N1.28 trillion in Q1 2021.
According to an earlier report by Nairametrics, Donald Ubeh, Head of Risk and Compliance at PalmPay, says mobile money operators have helped raise Nigeria’s financial inclusion rate to 74% in 2023, up from 51% in 2016. Today, over 1.5 million agents are on the field, handling about 60% of all transactions and moving more than $1 trillion in 2023 alone.
Behind these numbers are the founders building the digital rails of Nigeria’s payment system visionaries, who saw opportunity where banks saw barriers.
Methodology
In this feature, we spotlight owners of Mobile Money Operators licensed by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the people reshaping how money moves across Africa’s largest economy.
Although there are 18 licensed Mobile Money Operators (MMOs) in Nigeria, this list focuses only on companies with publicly verifiable data footprints, including ownership records, founding history, and regulatory documentation. Other licensed operators not featured here either have limited public disclosures or closed documentation regarding their company ownership and control structures.
Zhou Yahui is a Chinese billionaire entrepreneur, investor, and technology executive best known as the Chairman of Opera Software and the driving force behind OPay Digital Services Limited, one of Nigeria’s biggest fintech success stories. He is worth $1.6 billion according to Forbes.
- A graduate of Tsinghua University, China’s leading science and engineering institution, Zhou began his career in the gaming industry, founding Beijing Kunlun Tech Co. Ltd. in 2008.
- The company became a major player in China’s online gaming market before Zhou pivoted toward global technology investments.
- In 2016, he acquired Opera Software, the Norwegian internet browser company, expanding its footprint across Africa and other emerging markets.
Through Opera’s investment arm, Zhou rebranded Paycom Nigeria Limited, founded in 201,3 into OPay in 2018. Under his leadership, OPay evolved from a mobile payments app into a full-fledged financial ecosystem offering digital wallets, transfers, and agent banking services across Nigeria.
Today, OPay has achieved unicorn status, with a valuation estimated between $2.7 billion and $3 billion, making it one of Africa’s most valuable fintech companies.
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