OPay, a Chinese-owned fintech that has been offering Nigerians free transfers to other banks, has started charging ₦10 for transfers to non-OPay accounts.
A call to one of its agents confirmed that transfers to other banks had been free on the platform up until June 19, 2023, when it started charging users ₦10 after their third transfer to other banks in a day.
Interestingly, before OPay made transfers free, it was already charging ₦10 per transaction to other banks, till it increased to ₦45 ($0.059) in 2019.
While it's not clear when OPay made transfers completely free, the OPay agent that spoke to Techpoint Africa said before June 19, 2023, transfers on the platform to other banks were completely free.
Some users have taken to Twitter to express their displeasure at the ₦10 charge.
According to the Nigerian Financial Services Market report, the main pain point for people using banking institutions is "high charges and fees."
An image showing the pain points of people who use banking institutions.
Even people without bank accounts feel they do not earn enough to open bank accounts.
While ₦10 or ₦45 charges may be a drop in the bucket for the tech-savvy demographic of the country, a good number of people in Nigeria find these charges expensive.
A majority of people without bank accounts in Nigeria make less than ₦35,000 a month ($46), 182% lower than the global salary average of $1,019.
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