Opay has been in the news in recent times for unscrupulous bank transfer charges incurred by users on its platform.
The Opera browser fintech company, OPay recently increased the amount it charges on transfers to typical bank accounts. This fee was increased from a meagre N10 to about 1-2% of each transfer performed from the wallet.
It is important to recall that Opay launched into the fintech market with various incentives and bonuses. Some of the incentives include N200 flat rate on its ride-hailing service OPay, cost reduction on OFoods, and the N10 charge on transfer from OPay wallet to banks.
See Also: OPay deepens Service Offerings, Launches OBus in Lagos
OPay has ended most of its market entry bonus but the charge on transfers remained at N10, till the recent development.
The newly imposed 2% charge came as a shock to OPay wallet users who had not only resolved to bonuses from OPay but were also not pre-informed of the changes.
Good morning. It was shocking to me when I saw that outrageous charges, being deducted from my wallet. I was charged over N2000 for transferring N100k plus, even to my personal account. This is cheating and fraud of the highest order. I was not informed of changes in charges pic.twitter.com/CQLzGyKTYS
— Adediran Jamiu A. (@AdediranJamiuA) November 3, 2019
The newly imposed transfer charges have been generating backlash on OPay’s Twitter handle and diverse names were hurled at the fintech company.
To curb the backlash, OPay released a statement on its Twitter handle to apologize for the sudden change. The fintech noted that it revised its charges on bank transfers to 2% on every transaction on Monday but reverted it to N45 on the first transaction of the day. Other transfers for the day will, nevertheless, incur a 1% charge.
Hi Everyone, we sincerely apologise for the inconvenience we caused you by our lack of notice on the 2% bank transfer fee. We understand that this was not communicated appropriately and sincerely apologise for this.
— OPay (@OPay_NG) November 5, 2019
An analysis of the charges revealed that OPay will be charging N100 on every N10,000 transferred. This, when compared to the typical interbank transfer charge of N52 is absurdly expensive.
OPay isn’t the first fintech platform to introduce extra charges on transfer services. Carbon was first to launch a new transfer charge from its initial zero transfer to N10 flat rate.
The continuous increase in transactional fees by fintech companies might open more opportunities for banks. However, hopes are high on the growth of fintechs in Nigeria.