Former FNB CEO turned Optasia chair Michael Jordaan says the investment by FirstRand in the AI-led lending platform provides expansion opportunities in African markets, where digital banking is attracting the unbanked on an industrial scale.
Jordaan, who joined the board of Optasia a year ago ahead of its initial public offering on the JSE in November 2025, used his inaugural letter to shareholders to punt the investment in Optasia by his erstwhile employer, FirstRand.
“The IPO anchored FirstRand — parent company of First National Bank (FNB) — as a 20% strategic shareholder, bringing one of Africa’s most sophisticated financial services groups into direct alignment with Optasia’s growth agenda,” he said in a letter published in the group’s annual report.
“The FNB partnership creates a platform for potential expansion across South Africa and into Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Mozambique, and Ghana — markets where Optasia’s model of embedding credit within digital distribution is well suited to the competitive landscape.”
Jordaan is no stranger to FNB, having led the bank for a decade before stepping down in 2013 to pursue venture capital opportunities.
One of his investments is a stake in Optasia, alongside serial investors Nic Kohler, Willem Roos and Roger Grobler.
FirstRand in March upped its stake in Optasia to 26.1%. Established in 2012, Optasia has grown into a significant banking proposition, distributing more than $15m in credit daily, processing 1.5-billion credit decisions every month and operating across 38 countries.
Jordaan said the lender was well poised to seize growth opportunities after its initial public offering (IPO).
“The combination of a proprietary AI platform, deep operator relationships across 38 countries, and a balance sheet strengthened by the IPO gives Optasia the capacity to pursue geographic expansion, new product lines, and deeper partner integration from a position of strength,” Jordaan said.
“The financial inclusion gap is not closing on its own. Banks have had decades to address it and have largely been unable or chosen not to, because the economics only work at scale with the right technology. Optasia has that scale and that technology. The opportunity ahead is substantial and the group is well positioned to pursue it.”
Mobile financial services have become entrenched in Africa with Sub-Saharan Africa having emerged as the global leader in mobile money adoption.
One of the biggest success stories to come out of the continent is M-Pesa, largely regarded as Africa’s “super app”.
The company, established as a joint venture between Safaricom and Vodacom, has grown to be one of Africa’s biggest fintech success stories, with more than 60-million clients and processing about $1bn a day in transactions.
This is not an opportunity lost to Optasia, with the convergence of telecoms and financial services reshaping how credit, payments and financial inclusion are delivered.
The group said it had, in preparation for its IPO, commissioned independent market research from Altman Solon to assess the structural drivers supporting demand for mobile-first credit solutions across representative emerging markets.
“According to Altman Solon, across Sub-Saharan Africa alone, the combined total addressable market for MFS [microfinancing solutions] and ACS [airtime credit solutions] is estimated at between $300bn and $350bn as at 2024,” the company said in the annual report.
“Altman Solon assessed eight representative markets — Benin, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Pakistan, South Africa and Uganda — to illustrate ecosystem dynamics across different stages of digital maturity, regulatory development and mobile financial services adoption,”
“South Africa serves as a maturity benchmark for ACS adoption, with penetration exceeding 50% among eligible prepaid users, while Nigeria remains comparatively underpenetrated at approximately 23%, with growth supported by mobile tariff adjustments and improving foreign exchange conditions. Ghana, Uganda and Benin represent earlier-stage markets with strong structural expansion potential.”
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