On August 2nd, CNBC made a major announcement of the “Top 200 Global Financial Technology Companies” list, showcasing the names of 200 high-quality companies in industries such as electronic payment, digital assets, digital banking, and digital business from around the world.
The list includes prominent companies such as Ant Group, Tencent, PayPal, Stripe, Klarna, and Revolut, as well as some emerging startups with great growth potential. Financial technology platform OPay has also successfully made it to the list.
CNBC Global Fintech 200 list, screenshot from CNBC official website.
The “Top 200 Global Financial Technology Companies” list is a global ranking launched by CNBC in collaboration with the independent research firm Statista. According to the official introduction, to identify the top 200 fintech companies, Statista analyzed over 1,500 companies from nine different market segments worldwide and conducted detailed evaluations for each company based on a series of key performance indicators, including business model, revenue, number of users, and more.
To ensure the authority of the list, Statista also developed a scoring model to calculate the total score of each company’s performance and their respective key performance indicators (such as revenue and revenue per employee), as well as the individual scores of specific key performance indicators in their respective market segments. From each segment, 5-40 companies were selected. Only the companies with the highest scores in each market segment ultimately made it onto the list.
Since its establishment in 2018, OPay has consistently adhered to the concept of “making finance more inclusive with technology.” Through innovative financial technology based on AI and big data, OPay provides payment, digital wallet, and other financial services to emerging market customers in Africa, Asia. The market coverage includes countries such as Nigeria, Egypt, and Pakistan.
In less than five years, OPay has rapidly become one of the most competitive fintech unicorns in emerging markets. Since the launch of OPay’s digital wallet business in 2018, it has provided efficient and convenient financial services to people without bank accounts in Africa, becoming a key driving force for achieving inclusive finance in Africa.
Currently, OPay has nearly 40 million registered users, and its transaction volume reached 50 billion US dollars in 2022. In May 2023, the Monthly Active Users (MAU) of OPay’s wallet business surpassed 10 million, achieving remarkable results. In May 2022, OPay partnered with MasterCard to establish a strategic partnership, aiming to promote the further development of an interconnected payment ecosystem and accelerate the global progress towards inclusive finance.
OPay’s outstanding achievements in Africa and the Middle East have been gaining attention from international media. In February 2022, Forbes reported that OPay offers innovative financial technology solutions for the Middle East and North Africa region. In June 2022, CNN featured OPay as a leader and pioneer in Africa’s business transformation, conducting an in-depth report on OPay’s development in Nigeria in an episode of “Connecting Africa.”
Pakistan, as the world’s sixth most populous country, has a relatively low bank account coverage with cash payments accounting for about 80% of the entire society due to the inadequate payment infrastructure. The government highly values the digital transformation of society and, in 2019 and 2021, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) successively released the “National Payment System Strategy (NPSS)” and the “Instant Payment System (Raast)” to encourage the development of cashless payments, creating a favorable environment for the digital wallet industry
On February 14, 2023 (local time in Pakistan), Mr. Arif Alvi, the President of Pakistan, met with Mr. Zhou Yahui, CEO of OPay, at the President House in Islamabad. During the meeting, Mr. Zhou Yahui believed that digital banking would rapidly develop in Pakistan, and this would require strong technological support, such as AI technology. People will soon witness that digital finance, deposits and withdrawals, personal credit ratings, and other digital asset evaluations and transactions can be completed rapidly and accurately with the help of AI technology.
The digital economy holds great development prospects in Pakistan, and OPay’s Fintech technology can aid Pakistan in achieving “decashisation” and accelerating digital transformation.
Over the years, OPay attributes its success to the dedicated efforts of an innovative team and their commitment to providing seamless solutions that continuously enhance and significantly improve the African economy. In the future, OPay will also provide technological assistance for the development of electronic payment in Pakistan, helping Pakistani society embrace the faster arrival of cashless payment and the digital era.
