Co-Founder @petosscitech Exploring Africa Consulting https://nitter.cf/t.co/5X8L6L9s3y
AFRICA
Joined November 2009
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Babatunde D Peters retweeted
One of Africa's most exciting fintech companies, OPay, suddenly terminated a listing on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). This is after founder Zhou Yahui had rung the NYSE bell. Rather curious affair so I tried to dig for info.
1. OPay is a behemoth but its underbelly is a bit more fragile than I thought.
2. Turns out the payment app is almost a side show. It is mainly a consumer lender funded by retail savings. (BTW, it retains about 0.0385% of the gargantuan transaction volumes, which is not uncommon in the payments space.)
3. The IPO was meant to address three issues:
A/ about $1bn of preferred shares can be cashed in by investors if there is no listing worth at least $5bn by end of 2027
B/ the IPO cash proceeds were to form a cushion under its loan book, which has tripled in a year &
C/ there is a need for a New York perch before tough new Nigerian central bank (CBN) rules on consumer lending arrive.
4. About 61% of H1 2026 revenue came from loan & investment interest in naira
5. The lending business is funded by customer savings of $978.9m but $847.5m can be withdrawn at any time.
6. Cost of capital for that gig is high: for e.g. in August and September, OPay ran a campaign offering savers 27 per cent per annum (policy rate in Nigeria: 23.00%.)
7. Which makes OPay's loans expensive: anything from 36.5% to as high as 360%.
8. Credit-loss expense = $118.4m, more than the $90.9m net profit. Write-offs = $113.2m in six months, against $70m for all of 2025. 27.4% of the $415.3m loan book was past due.
9. As things get tough in Nigeria, a high-cost lender will feel the squeeze.
10. Liquidity coverage: Cash ($385.8m) plus short-term investments ($532.9m) cover about 94% of customer savings, before counting ordinary wallet balances.
11. With the IPO terminated, the $1bn preference share obligation stays and grows by about $60m a year.
12. Luckily, though, some key preference creditors are insiders, like founder Zhou.
(13. It is curious that JP Morgan that had been mentioned as the Lead Bank in March and repeated in May left by August.)
14. Of the adverse regulatory trends, the most critical are:
A/ Nigeria's central bank (CBN) decreed in June 2026 that any financial group with more than 25% of card issuing may hold no more than 15% of merchant acquiring (payment terminals), and vice versa. Compliance is due by 31 December 2026. OPay has 27% of payment terminals and 50m wallet users. Keeping card issuing under 15% would be a stretch.
B/ CBN also requires Nigerian payment data to stay in Nigeria from 1 January 2027, treats remote access from abroad as cross-border, and requires ultimate owners to be disclosed.
C/ In April 2024, 43 of the 105 fintech accounts frozen by court order in an FX and money-laundering probe were OPay's.
15. Meanwhile the wider group also needs cash in light of challenges in members like Kunlun, which lost $217m in the first 9 months of this year.
16. OPay says it terminated the IPO due to regulatory issues in a market that is immaterial to its business. Markets where it is regulatorily exposed but doesn't have much business are Egypt, Pakistan, Indonesia, and South Africa (Nigeria = ~90% of revenue).
17. Analysts noted that the shares were priced at $19 at the IPO but the ADS (American depositary shares) were being indicatively priced at $16.25 and $16.75 ahead of opening. The market was already pointing to a first-day loss.
18. The pause to address the regulatory notice would have thus led to the book being emptied, and the underwriters left holding shares at $19.
19. A polite agreement to terminate made sense on all sides. But it also means that Standard Bank’s separate investment of <$200 million can't happen either, as it was contingent on the IPO closing.
20. That, in fact, is Zhou and OPay's biggest headache. So much was hinged on the NYSE debut.
Babatunde D Peters retweeted
Gauteng was the largest provincial economy, contributing 32,5% to South African GDP.
#StatsSA #ProvincialGDP
statssa.gov.za/?page_id=1854…
Babatunde D Peters retweeted
JUST IN: 🇷🇺 Russia showcases international payment systems operating independently of Western financial networks.
Babatunde D Peters retweeted
I Couldn’t Eat For 5 Days After Listening To This Speech…
6 Minutes With Brian Tracy = TIME WELL SPENT
Babatunde D Peters retweeted
The "quadripoint" located at the confluence of the Chobe and Zambezi rivers near Kazungula, where the borders of Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe come within a hundred metres or so of meeting each other fascinates the world.
The four nations, Botswana (south), Namibia via the Caprivi Strip (west), Zambia (north), and Zimbabwe (east), almost meet where there is a state-of-the-art 923-metre long Kazungula Bridge built at a cost of US$260 million.
While often called a quadripoint, it is technically a near-quadripoint. Instead of a single mathematical point where four corners touch, a short 150-metre border connects Botswana and Zambia directly across the river, separated from Zimbabwe and Namibia by two distinct tripoints.
The configuration dates back to the 1890 Heligoland-Zanzibar Treaty, which created the Caprivi Strip so Germany could access the Zambezi River, while Britain got Zanzibar.
Babatunde D Peters retweeted
The reason I am doing what I am doing now is because of *this* sermon.
It might be the most impactful 2 minutes of preaching I've ever seen — and it changed my entire life.
Babatunde D Peters retweeted
David Friedberg explains the switch inside your DNA that makes you age.
@friedberg
Babatunde D Peters retweeted
𝗔𝗙𝗥𝗜𝗖𝗔’𝗦 𝗠𝗢𝗦𝗧 𝗣𝗢𝗣𝗨𝗟𝗢𝗨𝗦 𝗡𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡𝗦
Nigeria leads with over 242 million people, while the DRC has the youngest median age at just 15.9.
Meanwhile, South Africa has one of the oldest populations in this group, with a median age of 28.9.
Remember,
A young, growing population can create a powerful economic opportunity, but only if countries can provide enough jobs, education, infrastructure and investment to turn that growth into prosperity.
𝗔𝗙𝗥𝗜𝗖𝗔’𝗦 𝗕𝗜𝗚𝗚𝗘𝗦𝗧 𝗘𝗖𝗢𝗡𝗢𝗠𝗜𝗘𝗦
GDP adjusted for Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) accounts for differences in the cost of goods and services between countries.
In simple terms,
$100 can buy more in some countries than others. PPP adjusts for this, giving us a better comparison of the actual size of economies.
That’s why South Africa’s economy is valued at $1.08 trillion on a PPP basis, even though its nominal GDP figure is much lower.
Babatunde D Peters retweeted
If we valued our art, we would embed it in our homes the way it used to be done - carved on doors, marked on walls, placed in compounds.
It would have been passed down. Every generation would have seen it and known that African architecture was never minimalist. There would be no argument, because the evidence would still be standing in the houses we live in.
We stopped putting it in. Then we started forgetting what it looked like.
We rarely put African sculptures, masks, carvings, or paintings in our own homes. Then we get angry when we see them in the British Museum.
At the same time, many of us still fill our spaces with things brought in through colonization. That does not line up.
If we actually used our own art in our interiors, the demand would be here. Artists and makers would earn from it.
The conversation about where the pieces belong would make more sense, because we would already be treating them as part of how we live, not only as something we defend after someone else takes them.
Babatunde D Peters retweeted
That particular moment when George Yeo, Singapore’s former foreign minister, demonstrated a remarkably deep understanding of European history and the complex conflicts that have shaped the continent,an understanding that seems to elude many Western politicians.
It is genuinely rare to hear a senior statesman speak with such historical depth, intellectual clarity, and geopolitical insight.....
Babatunde D Peters retweeted
1. Remote mind reading without consent
2. Conscious AI as property/slaves
3. DNA-targeted personal bioweapons
4. Civilian autonomous kill drones
5. Human clones for organ harvesting
6. Nonconsensual memory edit/erase
7. Full-body biometric identity theft
8. Private weather manipulation
9. Neural hijacking of other people
10. Forced embryonic trait selection
11. Elite-only immortality tech
12. Private orbital kinetic weapons
Babatunde D Peters retweeted
First trailer for ‘THE EYES OF GHANA’, the first-ever film produced by IShowSpeed.
The documentary follows Ghanaian cinematographer Chris Hesse who attempts to rescue more than 1,000 films capturing Africa’s fight for independence in the 1950s & ’60s.
Babatunde D Peters retweeted
A Curva da Felicidade.
O economista David G. Blanchflower analisou dados de 132 países para investigar a relação entre idade e bem-estar subjetivo. O trabalho reuniu 109 conjuntos de dados e encontrou evidências de uma curva em U em todos os países analisados.
A curva sugere que:
- Na juventude: o bem-estar tende a ser relativamente elevado.
- Na meia-idade: a satisfação com a vida diminui, em média.
- A partir de aproximadamente 47 a 48 anos: o bem-estar tende a se recuperar, segundo as estimativas médias do estudo.
Créditos: IG / longevitydaily_
