Before Wednesday this week, OPay customers were only charged N10 for transfers from their OPay Wallets to bank accounts. Ordinarily in Nigeria, bank to bank transfers cost N52.5 per transaction. So OPay customers have been on subsidy street with OPay subsiding the transaction cost.
Well as from this Wednesday, OPay changed the rules. Instead of matching the N52.5 per transaction, it is now charging 1% flat. Ouch! But wait a minute, OPay says its customer will pay N45 for the first transfer of the day but 1% flat subsequently.
However OPay customers are complaining that they were not advised of this change before it was implemented.
About two days ago I was trying to transfer the sum of #19000 to someone through the @OPay_NG app
— Foyee Oko Madam (@Foyee_) November 4, 2019
And to my surprise I saw that the charges were #270.
So I contacted their representative through their twitter account and here's what I received
Even banks don't charge so much! pic.twitter.com/psCeRZ8C7h
As you would notice in the tweet above, OPay’s transfer fee was 2% per transaction with a minimum fee of N15. But this was on Tuesday.
OPay had to revise its fees to 1% with the first transaction fee of the day of N45 after a backlash from its customers
Certainly boys are not smiling. But I wonder why customers felt that the subsidy would continue forever. OPay is not like the Federal Government that has been subsiding Petrol like forever!
OPay is a private institution that must make profit and report to its shareholders. Customers should know that the subsidy regime was to entice people onto the platform and discourage you from leaving the platform. Peer-to-peer transactions still do not attract any fees within the OPay app.
So it is up to you to decide to remain and do your transactions within the app. OPay has a lot of services on its platform – ORide, OBus, OWealth, OPay and more. Why would you want to cash out?
