Standard Bank invests in OPay ahead of planned New York listing

Standard Bank, Africa’s largest lender, is investing about $185 million in OPay, the Nigeria-focused fintech backed by SoftBank, as OPay prepares to list in New York.

The investment follows nearly two months of discussions between the two companies. Bloomberg reported that Standard Bank will purchase OPay shares through a private placement running alongside the fintech’s initial public offering (IPO). OPay’s F-1 filing puts the investment at up to $200 million, although Standard Bank’s final amount will depend on exchange rates, its regulatory capital and OPay’s IPO price. An F-1 is the registration document a company files with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission before it can sell shares to the American public, and the final figures will only be set once OPay’s IPO prices.

Standard Bank’s stake cannot exceed 4.99%, and the shares will be subject to a 12-month lock-up period.

OPay has applied to list American depositary shares — certificates that allow a non-U.S. company’s shares to trade on American exchanges — on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the ticker “OPAY.” If the listing proceeds, OPay would join e-commerce company Jumia, which listed on the exchange in 2019, among the small number of Africa-focused technology companies trading in New York. Unlike recent African listings in which existing shareholders sold shares and received the proceeds, OPay is issuing new shares. The money raised through both the IPO and Standard Bank’s investment will go to the company.

The deal also extends beyond an equity investment. The two companies plan to collaborate on merchant payments, foreign exchange and wealth products. Lungisa Fuzile, Standard Bank’s Africa chief executive officer, will join OPay’s board.

The arrangement gives OPay capital, banking relationships and an institutional investor before it seeks backing from public-market investors. Standard Bank, in turn, gains exposure to a fintech with more than 50 million monthly active users without having to build that distribution network itself.

In the first half of 2026, OPay’s revenue more than doubled year on year to $806 million, with 89.5% of revenue coming from Nigeria. The IPO would give investors another way to gain exposure to African digital finance. A possible later listing in Nigeria could bring some of that ownership closer to the market where OPay built its scale.

Airtel Money closes below IPO price after London debut

Airtel Money, Airtel Africa’s mobile financial services business, listed conditionally on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) on Friday, ahead of its general public listing on October 14. Conditional listing allows shares to begin trading before the full listing takes effect.

The offering attracted orders several times greater than the number of shares available, an outcome known as oversubscription. The demand helped make the listing one of London’s biggest in years. However, Airtel Money closed its first trading day below the price investors paid in the initial public offering (IPO).

Airtel Money priced its shares at 196 pence, valuing the company at £5.3 billion ($7 billion). The shares briefly rose to 200 pence on Friday before closing at 193 pence, about 1.5% below the offer price. Existing investors sold 270 million shares worth £529 million ($703 million), while Airtel Africa retained its controlling stake in the mobile-money business. The London Stock Exchange published the final offer details.

Airtel Money had been preparing for the listing for months. It delayed the IPO in May as market conditions worsened, revived the plan in July and eventually came to market in October. The transaction was described as London’s largest first-time listing in five years.

The oversubscription, which involved about 100 institutional investors, only showed that demand exceeded the number of shares available at 196 pence. Once trading began, the market had another opportunity to assess the company’s value. Some investors who received could sell immediately, while others might not be willing to buy above the IPO price.

The first-day decline followed an earlier reduction in Airtel Money’s valuation ambitions. The company settled on a $7 billion valuation after previously targeting approximately $8 billion–9 billion. The larger adjustment therefore took place before the shares reached the market.

Full trading begins on October 14, when the wider pool of public investors will be able to trade the shares for the first time. Airtel Money has 53 million monthly active users and processed $213 billion in transactions in the year to June.

ARC Ride’s revenue nearly triples as losses widen

ARC Ride, a Kenya-based electric-mobility company that recently expanded into South Africa with an e-bike launch, sold substantially more motorcycles and battery swaps in 2025. Its losses, however, grew faster than its revenue.

Revenue nearly tripled to KES 561.6 million ($4.34 million), while the company’s net loss widened to KES 378.1 million ($2.92 million).

Motorcycle and product sales more than doubled to KES 380.5 million ($2.94 million). Battery-swapping revenue grew more than fivefold to KES 181.1 million ($1.4 million), increasing its share of total revenue from 17% to 32%. ARC Ride’s gross margin also edged up to 30.9%.

Administrative expenses, however, reached KES 551.9 million ($4.27 million), nearly matching the company’s revenue.

ARC Ride sells electric motorcycles and operates stations where riders exchange depleted batteries for charged ones. The model requires a broad network of batteries, stations and staff so riders can access charged batteries when using the company’s e-bikes. The business case depends on each motorcycle continuing to generate recurring energy revenue after the initial sale.

The company’s challenge is therefore not only finding customers but making growth pay for itself. Operations consumed KES 1.37 billion ($10.6 million) in cash during the year, more than twice the 2024 burn rate. Its cash balance still increased because financing brought in KES 2.75 billion ($21.3 million), while outstanding loans rose sharply.

At last year’s 31% gross margin, ARC Ride would need roughly KES 1.8 billion ($13.8 million) in annual revenue to cover its current administrative costs, assuming those costs did not increase.

ARC Ride raised another $33.3 million in September to deploy 5,000 motorcycles and expand its battery-swapping network. Battery-swap revenue will remain a key measure of whether revenue from the network can grow faster than the cost of building it. The company’s September fundraising was previously reported by TechCabal.

Ecobank targets easier Africa-China payments

Ecobank, the pan-African banking group operating in 34 countries, has opened an office in Beijing, China, and signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with China’s Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS), which processes international payments in Chinese yuan.

The move is intended to simplify payments for African traders buying electronics, machinery and other goods from Chinese suppliers. Trade between Africa and China reached $348 billion in 2025, up 17.7% from the previous year. China exported about $225 billion worth of goods to Africa, while imports from the continent totalled roughly $123 billion.

African importers, including businesses operating in technology and gadget markets such as Nigeria’s Computer Village and Ghana’s Circle, often convert local currency into dollars before converting the dollars into yuan. Each conversion can add costs. Ecobank’s Beijing office and its agreement with CIPS are designed to shorten that payment route.

China has worked to expand the yuan’s role in international trade since the 2000s. It launched CIPS in 2015 as a payment and settlement system intended to facilitate cross-border yuan transactions. China has also approved yuan-clearing banks and signed currency-swap agreements to encourage countries and businesses to use the currency in trade.

Greater use of the yuan in trade with China could reduce reliance on the dollar, although it does not mean the dollar is about to lose its role in international transactions.

Ecobank is not the only African bank developing direct links to China’s payment infrastructure. In November 2025, Standard Bank, Africa’s largest lender, connected directly to CIPS. By July 2026, it had facilitated about $1.2 billion in transactions. Rwanda’s Bank of Kigali joined CIPS in September, while Absa has also been exploring direct yuan payments.

Ecobank’s Beijing office and CIPS agreement could make it easier and cheaper for customers, including African traders, to pay Chinese suppliers by reducing currency-conversion costs and reliance on dollars. The benefits will depend on how the payment services are rolled out and used. CIPS provides information on its cross-border yuan-payment system.

Crypto tracker: The World Wide Web3

The source lists the following market changes:

• Day: +1.19%, +8.69%, +2.40%, +2.40%
• Month: –0.67%, –1.96%, –4.27%, +6.15%

Data as of 06:37 a.m. WAT on October 12, 2026. The source did not identify the corresponding coin names or current values in the extracted table.

Job openings

• Bumpa — Social Media Associate — Lagos, Nigeria
• Paystack — Product Manager, Financial Systems, and several other roles — Hybrid, Lagos, Nigeria
• Paystack — Product Manager, South Africa; Account Manager — Hybrid, Cape Town, South Africa
• Paystack — Platform Security Engineer — Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa
• Qore — Engineering Specialist, Offensive Security — Lagos, Nigeria
• OPay — PR Strategist — Lagos, Nigeria
• RadioNow — Videographer — Lagos, Nigeria

Additional openings are available on TechCabal’s job board. The publication said it had removed outdated listings. Employers can submit vacancies through this form.

The newsletter also linked to reports on Vatar’s $500,000 raise one week after the launch of Lagos Life, Mukuru’s approach to the gap between receiving and spending cash, Nigerian founders who built a fintech around travel frustrations, Shoprite’s airtime offering on Sixty60, PawaPay’s Mozambique payments licence a banker’s work with farmers.

Written by Emmanuel Nwosu and Yemi Kareem. Edited by Emmanuel Nwosu and Ganiu Oloruntade.

Source: TechCabal Daily, October 12, 2026.