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OPay is reportedly exploring a US IPO that could value it at about $4bn.
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NGX wants Nigerians to own shares in fintechs built on the local market.
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Dual listings could connect global capital with Nigeria’s growing digital economy.
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More fintech listings could also give the local stock market a stronger technology presence.
August 11, (THEWILL) — Nigeria’s fintech industry has grown into a major part of the country’s digital economy. Now, the Nigerian capital market wants local investors to own a bigger piece of it.
Nigerian Exchange Group CEO, Temi Popoola, recently urged the government to encourage companies with significant operations in Nigeria to list locally, even when they also pursue listings overseas.
“While we encourage free and open markets, let’s make sure our locals can also benefit. As they list abroad, they should also list in our country”, Popoola stated during a recent engagement with President Bola Tinubu in Abuja.
His comments come as some of Nigeria’s biggest privately owned fintech companies explore ways to access international capital.
OPay is one of the companies drawing attention. Bloomberg reported in May that the fintech was working with Citigroup, Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan Chase on preparations for a potential US initial public offering.
The proposed transaction could value OPay at around $4bn, although the plans had not been finalised.
For OPay, an overseas listing would offer access to a much larger pool of investors and potentially deeper liquidity. For Nigeria, however, a foreign-only listing could mean that local investors remain spectators to the growth of a company whose business was built largely in the Nigerian market.
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The Case For Local Ownership
OPay began operating in Nigeria in 2018 and has expanded from payments into a broader financial services ecosystem serving consumers, merchants and agents.
PalmPay has followed a similar path since entering the Nigerian market in 2019. Backed by investors including Transsion Holdings, the company has expanded its operations beyond Nigeria and into other African and Asian markets.
Both companies illustrate the scale of opportunity that Nigeria’s digital economy has created.
Mobile wallets, electronic transfers, agent banking and POS payments have become part of everyday financial activity for millions of Nigerians. That growth has also attracted substantial foreign investment into the country’s fintech sector.
Most major fintechs, however, remain privately held.
That leaves pension funds, asset managers and individual investors with limited ways to gain direct ownership in some of the companies shaping Nigeria’s financial system.
But a local listing could change that.
For the Nigerian Exchange, it would also bring a new type of company into a market still heavily represented by banks, industrial firms, consumer businesses and other traditional sectors.
Dual listings could offer a middle ground. Fintechs could access deeper international pools of capital while allowing Nigerian investors to own shares in businesses with substantial operations in the country.
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Such listings would also give the local market greater exposure to the growth of Nigeria’s digital economy.
For Nigerian investors, the issue is ownership. If major fintech companies built around Nigerian consumers eventually list abroad without a local offering, international investors could capture much of the equity upside while domestic investors remain largely limited to using their services.
Popoola’s proposal puts that gap on the capital market agenda. It does not require Nigerian fintechs to choose between international capital and local participation.
A dual-listing model could give these companies access to deeper global markets while allowing Nigerians to own a stake in businesses they have helped build through their daily transactions.
That could also give the Nigerian Exchange a more meaningful role in the country’s digital economy.
Joy Onuorah is a business journalist and brand communications specialist covering financial markets, artificial intelligence, digital economy, and the ideas reshaping business across Africa and the global market. Beyond her reporting for TheWill, Joy uses brand strategy, storytelling, copywriting, and high-value SEO to help brands build lasting market authority.
