OPay, the Nigeria-focused payments app backed by SoftBank, has cancelled its listing on the New York Stock Exchange. It was about to raise USD 304 million, or about KES 39.5 billion. On Friday 30th October 2026, it set its share price and rang the exchange’s opening bell. The shares never traded.
The exchange halted them at 3:30pm. That evening, OPay told US regulators the offering “will not be completed” because of “a recent regulatory inquiry relating to a jurisdiction immaterial to the Company’s business operations”. It didn’t name the country. On 4th November, people familiar with the matter said the questions came from a Chinese regulator. OPay hasn’t confirmed that.
That’s the strange part, because OPay’s money isn’t in China. Nigeria brought in 89.5% of its revenue in the first half of 2026, and the rest of its business is in Indonesia, Egypt and Pakistan. It made USD 90.9 million in net income (about KES 11.8 billion) on USD 467.1 million in revenue (about KES 60.7 billion) in those six months. On its own count, it had 50.1 million monthly active users at the end of July.
Why a Chinese regulator could stop it
OPay’s only connection to China is its founder, Zhou Yahui, the same people said. The prospectus, the document a company publishes to sell its shares, calls him James Zhou. He’s OPay’s non-executive chairman and, at 21.3%, its biggest shareholder. He also chairs Opera, the browser company, and founded Kunlun Tech, which is listed in Shenzhen.
China has rules for companies like this. Since 31st March 2023, Chinese companies listing abroad have had to file with the China Securities Regulatory Commission, the country’s securities regulator. Registering somewhere else doesn’t automatically get you out of it, because the rules go by “substance over form”. OPay’s parent is registered in the Cayman Islands and headquartered in Singapore, but that alone wouldn’t settle the question.
OPay knew this could come up. Its prospectus says its Chinese lawyers advised that no filing was needed, because it earned no revenue in mainland China in 2025 and its assets, business and most of its senior managers are outside the country. Then it adds: “We cannot assure you that we are not, or will not be, subject to such filing requirements for this contemplated offering and listing in the United States”.
OPay hasn’t said the inquiry is about those rules, so we can’t say it is. It also hasn’t explained why China International Capital Corporation, a Chinese investment bank, was one of four lead underwriters in the 23rd October prospectus but isn’t in the 30th October pricing announcement. Underwriters are the banks that buy a company’s new shares and resell them to investors, and once OPay and its underwriters agreed to end their deal, the listing was over.
Pulling out that late is rare, though not without precedent, says Matthew Kennedy, senior IPO market strategist at Renaissance Capital. It was also a rough day to list. OPay had priced 16 million shares at USD 19 each, about KES 2,500, the bottom of its range and enough to value the company at about USD 4 billion, or about KES 519 billion. By 2pm they were indicated to open at USD 16.25 to USD 16.75, as the Nasdaq 100 fell 3.5%. OPay’s filing gives only the inquiry as its reason.
Did SoftBank lose money?
Not directly. SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2 led a USD 400 million round in OPay in August 2021, about KES 51.9 billion, at a USD 2 billion valuation, about KES 260 billion. It was the fund’s first investment in an African startup, and a month later we covered it leading Andela’s USD 200 million round, about KES 26 billion.
Today it holds 6.6% of OPay. At the USD 19 price, that’s about USD 234 million or KES 30.4 billion by our maths. But SoftBank wasn’t selling any of it. Every share on offer was a new one from OPay, and the prospectus shows SoftBank’s holding unchanged by the deal. Existing shareholders had also agreed not to sell for a year. So no SoftBank cash disappeared on 30th October. It lost a public price for its stake and the start of that one-year wait.
The missing cash is OPay’s. Besides the USD 304 million, a Standard Bank unit had agreed to buy up to USD 200 million (about KES 26 billion) in shares, but only if the listing completed.
If you’re in Kenya, nothing changes. OPay doesn’t list Kenya among its markets, and the word doesn’t appear in its prospectus. You may still remember the name, because Opera launched OPay here in December 2017 as a payment service inside the Opera Mini browser. For people who use the app elsewhere, OPay says this “has no impact on OPay’s business operations, regulatory standing, or service delivery”.
We find the word immaterial harder to accept. It’s fair on revenue, but an inquiry reportedly from a country where OPay earned nothing last year has just stopped a USD 304 million listing. Any African tech company with a Chinese founder and plans to list abroad should take that seriously.
Talks with Chinese authorities are continuing, the same people said, and it isn’t clear whether the concerns can be resolved. OPay says it’s confident the inquiry “will be concluded satisfactorily in the near future”, though it hasn’t given a date for that or for trying again. SoftBank Group reports half-year results on 10th November, which is the next chance for it to be asked.
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