Chinese-backed and Africa-focused fintech company, OPay has reportedly appointed ex-FCMB Director, Olu Akanmu as the new president/Co-CEO for its Nigerian division. It was first reported by Nairametrics but has been confirmed from other trustworthy sources, even though the appointment has not been officially announced by the OPay.
Before taking up this new role, Olu Akanmu was the Executive Director- Retail Banking at First City Monument Bank (FCMB), a commercial bank based in Lagos, Nigeria. He is an experienced commercial leader with an unusual diversity of experience in consumer goods, manufacturing, healthcare, telecommunications and financial services at very senior levels with successful track records. He has worked in various capacities in Airtel as the Chief Marketing Officer, MTN as the General Manager, Consumer Marketing, Bank PHB as the Managing Director of Retail and Consumer Banking, Glaxo Nigeria and more.
Olu Akanmu holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Pharmacy from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife and an MBA from Lagos State University. He also has a distinction in the Management Advancement Program and a post-graduate diploma in Business Research from the University of Witwatersrand and Edinburgh Business School, respectively.
Olu is expected to bring in strategic, institutional leadership in an otherwise entrepreneurial fintech startup. According to OPay, Olu Akanmu will work alongside the current leadership led by Iniabasi Akpan who is currently the Country Manager of OPay Nigeria.
OPay, which is short for Opera Pay was launched by Opera in Nigeria in 2018. It started out with its payment service and later launched its ride hailing service Oride in 2019, followed by OCar, OBus in the same year.
Its operations were however hit badly when there was a ban on commercial motorcycles in Lagos in 2020 and this resulted in part to the discontinuation of some of its services – ORide, OCar, OExpress businesses in Nigeria later in the year.
In 2019, OPay also got the approval by the Central Bank of Nigeria to carry out International Money Transfer services in Nigeria, thereby facilitating remittance B2B, B2P and P2P remittance services into Nigeria
Though the latest figures have not been released, the company planned to achieve a $2 billion transaction value by end of 2020. The company started with $363 million in January and grew to a whooping $1.4 billion in November, 2020.
Opay recently secured a $400 million Series C funding round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 shooting its valuation to $2 billion. This new funding was to help the company “be the power that helps emerging markets reach a faster economic development.”
