Pascal Oparada
For a lot of people, it is getting a ride with the tap of a finger on a mobile phone. To others, it is stopping hunger on its track, getting a loan, betting, recharging your mobile phone, buying data, subscribing your cable TV or doing more.
It is also a tap that can hurl the user into the world of endless other taps.
The Norwegian-founded, China-owned digital payment platform, OPay, has found itself woven around the everyday life of the average Lagos resident.
For most people, Opay represents just transportation which is symbolised by their lemon green bikes that move them around the intractable Lagos traffic or OBus, which is trying to put an end to the thug-operated and controlled transport system in Lagos.
Analysts have said no serious government would leave its transport system in the hands of street urchins who determine how taxpayers should move around a bubbling city like Lagos.
Maybe that is what OPay and other operators in the bike hailing business have come to correct as they try to unlock billions of dollars said to be trapped in the transport industry in Nigeria.
But for others who have taken a deeper look, OPay is an emerging digital powerhouse, which residents of Nigeria’s economic nerve centre have come to rely on.
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Just last month, it got a boost when it got a $120 million investment from Chinese investors in a Series B rounds.
Investors include Meituan-Dianping, GaoRong, Source Code Capital, Softbank Ventures Asia, BAI, Redpoint, IDG Capital, Sequoia China and GSR Ventures.
OPay’s $120 million round comes after the startup raised $50 million in June this year.
At the OPay office in the Central Business area of Ikeja, Lagos, people could be seen scurrying around. It is difficult to decipher a visitor from the staff among the many who throng the office on an hourly basis except that the staff members have identification cards hanging around their necks.
Emmanuel Ojei, a native of Benue State, has come to resolve a problem at the office. He is an Oride operator. He has run into a problem with the city’s revenue collectors. His bike has been seized and he has come to make clearance for it.
The lady at the desk pulls up a portal on her laptop.
“This is where you stopped yesterday before the guys took the bike, right?” She asked Emmanuel who seemed uninterested.
“Yes,” he answered. “This is the third time this week that I am being stopped, he answered the lady.
Emmanuel is one of the many who ride the ubiquitous Oride bikes, which a lot of people call by its parent company’s name, OPay.
The company is not just moving to revolutionise the future of payment in Nigeria but also trying to transform the way we move around, eat, shop, save, move funds and do a lot more.
The OPay app is a one-stop-shop for almost everything you can do with a smartphone.
A lot of those spoken to say they prefer to have all their money in an OPay wallet where they can now disburse to other accounts.
“I can leave my house without a dime in my pocket and not be worried as long as I have money in my OPay wallet,” Abiodun Kehinde said.
OPay charges users N10 to transfer funds from its platform to other accounts. The banks charge from N50 to N52.
For Kehinde and others, they can even go shopping without an ATM card or cash. All they need have is a smartphone. All they need do is to either scan a Quick Response (QR) code or make purchases via their wallets on the app and have all their financial hassles sorted.
If rumours making the rounds are anything to go by, OPay maybe going into full digital banking services. Presently, it operates limited financial services with its OPay platform with many agents scattered around the city. Users can move funds, pay for goods and services using their app.
But it’s not all smooth ride for OPay. The company is grappling with thugs in cities like Lagos where its riders face the problem of having to deal with brute force by men under the auspices National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) who insist that they pay five times higher than regular bike riders.
This and many other problems have caused many riders to abandon the platform and opt for other ride-hailing apps like Gokada and Maxng.
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Ojei confided that he is mulling pulling out of the platform because there is no respite for riders.
Even though the company has tried to negotiate with NURTW, riders are sceptical the ceasefire would last.
“I know that as I leave here, it won’t be long before I run into these guys again. There are some routes we dare not ply because of these urchins,” Ojei said.
Others have also protested OPay’s high handedness as it forces riders to cough out N1,500 daily payment whether or not they are on the road.
And the amount of money they have to refund for the bikes. Some say it almost tripple the amount the bikes were purchased initially.
“The conditions with which we take these bikes are rigid. Our guarantors are co-debtors and this makes many who want to join the platform to leave,” Chinedu Eze, another rider said.
And users have said it takes longer to secure an Oride despite its ubiquity, although the company constantly updates its app.
Recently it added OCar an Uber-like car services and Trike, for tricycle operators, which Maxng are the pioneer with MaxKeke.
According to feelers, OCar services is designed to give Uber and Bolt (Taxify) a run for their money.
For whatever it is worth, OPay is giving Nigerians the opportunity to leverage technology to ease their way of life.
