Building a Payments Infrastructure From Scratch

Dotun Adekunle, CTO and COO of OPay, shared insights into how the fintech giant processes over 100 million transactions daily—a journey that began with uncertainty.

Early Challenges

Before becoming one of Africa’s largest fintech companies, OPay faced a critical question: would it survive its first year? Adekunle recounted times when transactions were disrupted by fiber cuts requiring manual router resets on rooftops—demonstrating the infrastructure challenges in early digital payments.

From Paycom to OPay

Adekunle’s experience at Paycom, one of Nigeria’s first mobile money operators dating back to 2010, laid the foundation for OPay. When regulatory changes required higher capitalisation, Paycom couldn’t meet the threshold, leading to Adekunle’s departure.

However, when investors acquired Paycom and sought someone with deep technical understanding, they brought him back—making him the first entry in what would become OPay’s extensive user database.

The Pivot Moment

In 2018, during OPay’s first year under its current name, customer acquisition was slow. The company experimented with various services like ride-hailing, food delivery, and logistics—each designed to create a need for the payment wallet.

“The end game for us was always to bring customers into the ecosystem,” Adekunle explained. “But we saw that the real solution was to remove the friction of payments itself.” This realization led OPay to focus solely on payments, unlocking rapid growth.

Real-Time Infrastructure Monitoring

Today, OPay’s transaction volume serves as a surveillance system for Nigeria’s financial infrastructure. The company monitors banks, payment switches, and POS terminals in real time—detecting issues before they impact users.

“We can see the delay,” Adekunle said. “Every 10 to 20 minutes, we generate enough data to know which services are available or experiencing problems.” This allows OPay to proactively inform users about potential disruptions and ensure smooth transactions.