OPay's $4B Wall Street Debut Is Off

Hey FinTech Fanatic!

OPay's Wall Street debut didn't happen.

Last week, I wrote that African FinTech was heading back to Wall Street, with OPay targeting a valuation of up to $4.4 billion in its US IPO.

On Thursday, the SoftBank-backed company priced 16 million American depositary shares at $19 each, the bottom of its range. That meant raising $304 million at a valuation of about $4 billion, with NYSE trading due to start on Friday.

It never started. OPay pulled the offering to respond to a regulatory inquiry in a jurisdiction it says is immaterial to its core business.

The company hasn't named the regulator. It says it expects the matter to be resolved satisfactorily in the near future.

Quite a turnaround in one week.

I find this interesting because OPay is one of Nigeria's largest digital payments platforms, with around 50 million monthly active users. Its listing was set to be a real test of US investor appetite for African FinTech. Instead, it has stalled on an inquiry we know very little about.

The big question is whether OPay returns to the US market once the inquiry is closed, and at what valuation. Definitely one to watch.

Anyway, plenty more happened in FinTech today.

Let’s dive in, and I’ll be back in your inbox tomorrow!

Cheers,

Marcel

INSIGHTS

💡 Incognia: The Fraud Economy: How to Identify Suspicious Receiving Accounts. In Episode 4, Incognia CEO André Ferraz explores how banks can detect money mule networks by looking beyond outgoing payments and investigating the accounts receiving stolen funds. The discussion covers account handovers, shared devices and locations, suspicious account behaviour, and the role of location intelligence in connecting seemingly unrelated accounts. It also examines the UK's APP scam reimbursement rules and why receiving financial institutions have an increasing responsibility to identify suspicious activity. The key takeaway: understanding the networks behind receiving accounts can reveal fraud patterns that individual transaction monitoring may miss.  Watch the full episode here 

FINTECH NEWS

🇺🇸 SoftBank-backed OPay cancels its $304M NYSE IPO over a regulatory inquiry. The Nigeria-focused payments firm priced 16 million ADSs at $19 before NYSE trading was halted. OPay and its underwriters then terminated the underwriting agreement, citing a regulatory inquiry in a jurisdiction it calls immaterial to its business.

🇺🇸 Navro expands its US regulatory footprint with a Texas licence. The Texas Department of Banking has granted the payments firm a money transmitter licence. Navro already holds licences in Delaware, Florida and Washington D.C., alongside e-money authorisations from the FCA and the Central Bank of Ireland.

PAYMENTS NEWS

🇮🇳 Razorpay receives a final IFSCA licence for cross-border payments from GIFT City. The final PSP licence follows in-principle approval in April and covers global investing, international collections, foreign currency transfers and multi-currency accounts. Integrations with RBL Bank and ICICI Bank are already live.

🇪🇸 CaixaBank lets customers pay in instalments in stores with Apple Pay. Holders of CaixaBank and imagin credit cards can split in-store purchases made on iPhone into plans of two to 12 months, chosen before or after paying. Plans are managed in the CaixaBank app.

#FINTECHREPORT

💡 Visa Q4 FY2026: Revenue Reaches $45.9 Billion as Trust Becomes the Next Growth Priority. Visa closed the year with Q4 net revenue of $12.1 billion (+13% YoY) and record full-year revenue of $45.9 billion (+15%). Cross-border volume grew 14%, while processed transactions reached 74.2 billion, up 10%. Beyond its core payments network, Visa is expanding its security business, including the planned $2.4 billion acquisition of BioCatch, as it positions fraud prevention and trust as new growth drivers. The company expects low-double-digit revenue growth in fiscal 2027, while rising client incentives remain an area to watch. Read the full results analysis here 

🇧🇭 Mumtalakat and ARP Group plan an AI-native wholesale bank in Bahrain. The Central Bank of Bahrain has given in-principle approval for the blockchain-enabled bank, which would serve regulated financial institutions, payment companies and cross-border businesses. It cannot begin regulated activity until final authorisation.

🇬🇧 Chrysalis raises the valuation of its Starling stake to £403.9M. The investment trust, which holds about 11% of Starling, made the £47.9M uplift after an external valuation review, implying roughly £3.4B for the bank. Founder Anne Boden has sold her remaining stake at a £1.7B valuation.

🇪🇺 ING brings its Private Banking service to Spain and Italy. Aimed at clients with at least €500,000 in financial assets, the offer combines digital investing with personal advice. ING starts with 35 private bankers in Spain and around 40 in Italy, where the service will expand gradually.

🇬🇧 Allica Bank opens its Business Rewards Account to broker referrals. Commercial finance brokers can now apply for clients via the bank's introducer portal, earning £400 or £600 depending on balances held. Allica says it has paid business customers more than £100M in savings interest.

🇵🇰 HugoHub makes its first live bank deployment with HugoBank in Pakistan. The Singapore platform powers HugoBank's digital banking pilot under a State Bank of Pakistan restricted licence, offering accounts, money pots and debit cards. HugoBank plans to seek commercial approval in early 2027.

BLOCKCHAIN/CRYPTO NEWS

🇧🇷 Pomelo expects 2027 to be the year of cross-border payments with digital assets. Speaking at Fórum Payment Anyway 2026 in São Paulo, head of business development Fabio Pompeo said scaling depends on existing consumer payment methods. Brazil's crypto volume reached about R$283B in H1 2026, according to Receita Federal data.

🌐 Binance resumes withdrawals following its $6.3B security breach. Deposits and withdrawals are restarting in phases by network and asset. The exchange says it has now covered approximately 95% of the affected assets, up from 90% on 31 October.

🇧🇷 Mercado Bitcoin suspends deposits and withdrawals after suspected hack. Security firm Hypernative flagged around $40M in suspicious outflows from hot wallets across at least 10 blockchains. Brazil's largest crypto exchange says it will absorb the loss and does not expect customer losses.

 🌐 BTCPay Server urges operators to shut down after hot wallet drains. The open-source bitcoin payment processor is investigating reports of unauthorised sweeps from merchants' hot wallets. Founder Nicolas Dorier said affected installations appear to run releases older than version 2.4.2. No loss figure has been published.

🇲🇾 Binance in talks for a Malaysian licence after a five-year absence. The exchange says it has spent about 10 months engaging the Securities Commission and Bank Negara Malaysia on a licensed operating pathway. The regulator ordered it to cease operations in 2021, and its site and app remain blocked.

🇺🇸 Uber tests blockchain investing with HSBC and Franklin Templeton. In the tokenisation pilot, Uber used HSBC tokenised deposits to buy a Franklin Templeton tokenised money market fund on a Thursday and sold it on Sunday, earning extra weekend yield.

🇺🇸 Chainalysis hit by a cybersecurity incident affecting customer data. The blockchain analytics firm says the incident exposed user IDs, names and email addresses, with no evidence of access to investigation content, credentials or session tokens. It has hired external security experts.

🇭🇰 Standard Chartered launches tokenised deposits for corporate clients in Hong Kong. Built on the bank's own blockchain and the HKMA's Ensemble infrastructure, the tokenised deposit service supports 24/7 liquidity and real-time transfers. China AMC, Finloop and Panther Trade have completed live transactions.

🇪🇺 EU entity suspected of losing $106 million from crypto exchange accounts, ZachXBT says. The unidentified attacker moved funds through ether, instant exchanges and Monero. The victim and affected exchanges remain unknown.

PARTNERSHIPS

🇺🇸 Mastercard has signed a broad strategic partnership with OpenAI. Disclosed on the Q3 earnings call, the OpenAI partnership includes use of Mastercard Agent Pay. CEO Michael Miebach said agentic commerce is still in its early days, with volumes not yet significant despite strong weekly growth.

🇨🇳 Tencent and Mastercard sign an MoU on cross-border and agentic payments. Under the non-binding agreement, TenPay Global and Mastercard will explore letting foreign visitors pay at QR merchants in mainland China with their own wallets, and deepen remittances into Weixin. Agentic payments would follow later.

🇪🇬 Mastercard and EBank expand their collaboration on digital payments in Egypt. The strategic collaboration covers the Export Development Bank of Egypt's debit, credit and commercial cards, with Mastercard providing tokenisation, fraud and risk tools and loyalty services. New products will target specific customer segments.

🇮🇳 The Souled Store selects Unlimit to handle payments for high-demand launches. The Indian pop culture retailer now uses Unlimit across its website and app for UPI, net banking and card payments. The new payments setup is built to absorb traffic spikes during drops and sales.

🇦🇹 Bitpanda adds three Raiffeisen banks to its Austrian partner network. Customers of Raiffeisen-Landesbank Steiermark, Raiffeisen Salzburg and Raiffeisen Vorarlberg can now access more than 650 crypto assets through the Mein ELBA app. Trading takes place directly with Bitpanda, while the banks provide access.

🇬🇧 Klarna brings interest-free instalments to Fresha's booking platform. Businesses using Fresha worldwide, including hair, beauty, wellness and fitness providers, can now offer Klarna's flexible payments for appointments. Fresha serves more than 130,000 partner businesses in over 120 countries.

🇨🇦 CIBC selects Thought Machine to modernise its core banking. Under the multi-year Vault Core partnership, CIBC has built The Simplii Account for its digital brand Simplii Financial, now in a live pilot. Real-time payments and wider retail core modernisation are planned.

🇪🇺 Revolut Pay goes live as a checkout option on Trendyol. Shoppers on the online marketplace can pay in a single tap via account-to-account transfers, without entering card details. Revolut users earn 5x RevPoints on purchases until 18 November.

🇨🇳 Thunes and UnionPay International raise instant payout limits into China. Thunes clients can now send instant payouts to UnionPay cards at 79 major Chinese banks, up to $10,000 per recipient per day. Sending corridors include Indonesia, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand and the US.

🇭🇰 HashKey On-Chain and RD Technologies partner on RDUSD stablecoin testing. RDUSD, a US dollar stablecoin issued by Anchorage Digital Bank and supported by RD Technologies, will be deployed on HashKey's HSK Chain for on-chain testing. Planned use cases include trading, settlement, treasury management and tokenisation.

🇸🇳 Visa signs an MoU with Senegal to develop digital payments. The two-year agreement with the ministry of telecommunications and digital affairs will explore person-to-government and government-to-person payments, cybersecurity and regulatory cooperation. It is Visa's first partnership with a Senegalese government institution.

🇨🇳 Tencent and UnionPay International sign an MoU on remittances into China. TenPay Global and UnionPay International will explore two-way remittance solutions in their first remittance partnership. TenPay Global already handles remittances into Weixin wallets from more than 150 countries and regions.

🇭🇰 XTransfer partners with Bank of China (Hong Kong) on cross-border payments. Signed at Hong Kong FinTech Week, the cooperation agreement combines BOCHK's settlement and FX capabilities with XTransfer's B2B network. It covers global collections, payments and FX for businesses in Hong Kong and other markets.

🇳🇱 ING and Gigs launch a travel eSIM for ING banking customers. Called ING eSIM, the product is live in the Netherlands first. Poland, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Spain, Romania, Turkey and Australia are due to follow, bringing the rollout to nine ING markets.

🌎 LianLian Global and Cobre partner on China–Latin America payments. LianLian clients gain access to Cobre's local payment rails in Latin America, while Cobre clients can pay out into China through LianLian's licensed network. Both plan to add further corridors.

DONEDEAL FUNDING NEWS

🇺🇸 SBI Holdings plans $100M investment in US digital bank Erebor. The Japanese financial group will invest through its US subsidiary, SBI Holdings USA, to gain digital banking know-how, with an eye on blockchain-based settlement. The stake size has not been disclosed.

🌎 Bizcap closes $175M credit facility to grow small business funding in the US and Canada. The Australian-founded lender, which runs its North American headquarters from Miami, secured the facility from an unnamed US credit manager. The capital will also fund further investment in AI and proprietary technology.

🇬🇧 LO:TECH raises $12M Series A to expand into the US and Asia-Pacific. MMC led the round for the London trading firm, joined by Faction, 13 Books Capital and Atka. It has launchednew execution services across traditional, digital and prediction markets and is targeting New York and Singapore.

M&A

🇸🇪 Liberis and Qred complete their merger after Swedish regulatory approval. Backed by Nordic Capital, the combined SMB finance group serves more than 60,000 small businesses across 17 countries. Qred founder Emil Sunvisson becomes group CEO, with Liberis CEO Rob Fairfield as deputy CEO.

🇨🇳 Hong Kong-listed IBS agrees a HK$563M AI chip acquisition. International Business Settlement Holdings has signed a share purchase agreement for QuantumCompute Solutions, which indirectly owns about 85.94% of Shanghai Tianjing Fulian, a designer of AI and edge computing chips. Completion is pending.

🇨🇦 Pateno Payments completes acquisition of XTM's EveryDay platform. The platform lets Canadian businesses, mainly in hospitality, distribute tips and other payments digitally, and will be rebranded as GratiaPay. The Ontario Superior Court approved the asset sale under XTM's creditor protection proceedings.

AI DEVELOPMENTS

🌐 AI agent Instinct briefly stopped replying on WhatsApp after a payment error. Founder Noah Shinn said a configuration issue interrupted payments to one of the company's service providers. Service has been restored. Shinn says the agent, which books travel and reservations, is approaching $1B in annualised transaction volume.

🇭🇰 HSBC to open an AI institute in Hong Kong. Planned for Q1 2027 with the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology as anchor partner, the AI and emerging technology institute will later move to the Northern Metropolis. It follows a similar HSBC centre in Singapore.

🇭🇰 Mox Bank backs HKMA's Project SAGE on agentic AI in finance. Launched during Hong Kong FinTech Week, the HKMA initiative will test real-world use cases to develop guardrails for AI agents in financial services. The Standard Chartered-owned digital bank has committed to exploring these applications.

MOVERS AND SHAKERS

🇬🇧 Sokin appoints former Corpay executive Christopher Morris as chief revenue officer. Morris, previously chief growth officer for payment solutions at Corpay Cross-Border, will lead Sokin's global commercial organisation, covering sales, onboarding, relationship management and revenue operations.

🇬🇧 Paragon appoints Sarah Wilkinson as chief operating officer. Wilkinson joins the UK specialist lender on 1 December. She was most recently COO of Virgin Money, which she joined in 2023 from Thomson Reuters, where she was chief information officer.

🇬🇧 Paysafe appoints gaming industry veteran Rob Schonfeld as chief revenue officer. Schonfeld will lead Paysafe's global revenue organisation, including sales, partnerships and commercial strategy. He was most recently chief business officer at Ludeo and previously global revenue officer at Activision Blizzard.

🇸🇬 GXS Bank appoints Harikrishnan Raguraman as Chief Technology Officer. Raguraman previously led enterprise technology and generative AI strategy at the Grab and Singtel-backed digital bank. The CTO appointment comes as GXS and Grab bring their engineering, data and product teams closer together.

 🇺🇸 Nuuvia appoints Ben Morales and Stephanie Curtis to its CUSO board. Curtis serves as Chief Member Experience Officer at VyStar Credit Union, while Morales is an operating advisor at Demopolis Equity Partners and previously led technology and operations at WSECU. Nuuvia's lifecycle banking platform serves community banks and credit unions.

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