Iniabasi Akpan, the Country Manager for OPay in Nigeria, has said that after the Okada ban in Lagos, “we are going to be focusing on things around delivery.”
Akpan told the Nigerian Tribune in an interview: “There is no doubt that the Okada ban in Lagos State cost us a great deal. But, we still have a payment business which is thriving. And I think that that is the most important thing. I guess others were more hit than us because they don’t have a payment business. Our core is the payment business. So, that has always been the core of our business and not actually the ride business.”
Going down memory lane, he said, “Opay invested in a mobile money operator called PayCom Nigeria Limited in 2017, and PayCom applied for a license in 2010 and got an approval in principle from the Central Bank in 2011, with a final license in 2011. The ultimate goal of Opay is what we are trying to do which is to drive financial inclusion.
“As I said, we still have a core payment business. So, if the ride doesn’t work, there are still opportunities for us in payment in terms of bank transfers, airtime. So, Opay itself is a payment business. But then, when you have other subsidiaries like the ride-hailing, food and other delivery side, which is O-food, where we see an opportunity that will empower people, we will leverage the digital platforms that are available.
“We have subsidiaries like logistics and transport. With the ban, we are going to be focusing on things around delivery. I am sure there are a lot of discussions going around that. And very soon, I am sure that there will be some transformation.”
The Opay country manager said the plan to go into delivery “will also help a lot of SMEs who want to go online, who want to do deliveries but they have an inner problem because they cannot afford to put in place the infrastructure to do that. I can tell you many of the cars you find in Lagos are either going to pick up something or drop something and it is always doing busy hours.
“So, if people can get what they order delivered, you will find out that there will be less traffic. I believe that Logistics would make an impact on the number of cars that you see on the roads.”
A source in the company told the Nigerian Tribune that “truly Opay is selling the motorcycles because of the Lagos State government policy on the ban on motorcycles which affected most bike-hailing companies.”
He added that since the government allowed them for logistics businesses, the company put out a call for interested persons. “The motorcycles are fairly used ones, about 95 per cent new and are mechanically sound and okay.
“They have number plates already and their documents will be made available for the buyers to do a change of ownership,” he added.
Opay in Nigeria is a member of the Opera Group of Companies, owners of Opera AS Norway, developers of the popular web browser, Opera.
