AI-driven fintech Optasia has reported full-year revenue of $265 million (R4.4 billion) for 2025, a 76% year-on-year increase that exceeded the targets the company set at the time of its JSE listing, marking a strong debut performance for what is now the exchange’s largest-ever fintech initial public offering.
According to the JSE, Optasia listed on the exchange’s Main Board in November 2025 under the ticker OPA, raising R6.5 billion in an IPO that was several times oversubscribed by both South African and international institutional investors, implying a market capitalisation of R23.5 billion at the offer price of R19 per share. The listing was the largest in South Africa since 2018. Ahead of the IPO, FirstRand acquired a 20.1% strategic stake in the company through an off-market transaction, a move seen as a signal of long-term institutional confidence in Optasia’s model and growth trajectory.
The company’s 2025 figures show adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation of $115 million (R1.9 billion), up 52% year-on-year, with margins holding at 43.2%. Normalised net income rose 57% to $57.8 million (R973 million). Total value distributed through Optasia’s platform reached $5.5 billion (R92 billion), a 44% increase, as the company extended its reach via partnerships with mobile network operators and financial institutions. The platform’s user base grew 43% to more than 432 million, and the company launched eight new market deployments over the course of the year.
As reported by Optasia’s investor relations materials, the company’s Micro Finance Solutions products now account for 62% of revenue, up from just 1% in 2019, with the shift to higher-value services pushing its take rate to 4.8%. Despite rapid platform expansion, default rates remained at 1.2%, attributed to an AI-driven credit decisioning system that processes more than 5,000 data elements across 100 AI models to generate 1.5 billion credit decisions per month.
The structural context underpinning Optasia’s growth is significant. Africa’s fintech market — led by South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt and Kenya — is projected to reach $65 billion by 2030. Over 1.7 billion adults in emerging markets remain unbanked or underbanked, a structural gap that Optasia’s B2B2X platform, embedded within partner telecoms and banking infrastructure, is designed to address without requiring direct consumer-facing operations at scale.
On the acquisitions front, Optasia announced an agreement to acquire Finergi Global for an initial consideration of $30 million, with a further $10 million contingent on performance milestones. Finergi holds patents in 24 countries for technology that enables real-time credit access through prepaid electricity systems, effectively using utility infrastructure as a channel for short-term lending. The company has secured initial contracts with utility providers, governments and financial institutions. Optasia described the deal as its first step in expanding beyond telecoms into new service ecosystems, targeting the structural credit gap faced by consumers in markets where prepaid electricity is the norm.
CEO Salvador Anglada said the company is entering 2026 from a position of strength, with growth guidance pointing to sustained expansion across all key metrics in the low-to-mid-twenties percentage range. The company’s strategy centres on deepening its mobile financial services footprint, geographic expansion into Southeast Asia and Latin America, and broadening its product suite beyond micro-lending into areas including buy-now-pay-later and device financing.