OPay has reaffirmed its position as one of Nigeria’s leading fintech companies at the Digital PayExpo 2026, where it served as the Headline Sponsor of the two-day industry event held on June 17 & 18, 2026 at the Landmark Event Centre, Lagos.
Through thought leadership, industry dialogue and interactive customer engagement, OPay demonstrated how responsible innovation and Artificial Intelligence (AI) can help build a more connected, inclusive and trusted digital economy across Africa.
The event brought together regulators, financial institutions, fintech leaders, technology experts and industry stakeholders to discuss the future of digital payments and financial services. On the first day of the event, Dotun Adekunle, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Technology Officer, OPay, delivered a keynote address titled “The African Fintech Frontier: Leveraging AI to Unlock a Unified Digital Economy.”
His presentation highlighted Africa’s unique opportunity to lead the next phase of global fintech innovation by combining its young population, rapidly expanding digital economy and the transformative power of AI.
He noted that while fintech has significantly expanded financial inclusion across Africa, the next stage of growth must focus on integrating AI to reduce payment friction, improve financial access, strengthen fraud prevention, enable smarter compliance, and unlock credit opportunities for tens of millions of underserved individuals and businesses.
Speaking during the keynote, Dotun Adekunle said: “The first chapter of African fintech was about inclusion. The next chapter is about integration. AI is the bridge that can connect 1.4 billion people into a single digital economy, and the decisions we make today will determine whether Africa consumes that future or creates it.”
He also called for stronger collaboration across the ecosystem, encouraging industry players, regulators, and investors to work together to build interoperable payment infrastructure, trusted data governance, and digital identity systems that will support Africa’s long-term digital transformation.
Later on the first day, Dotun Adekunle joined other respected industry leaders on the Merchant Payments Observatory panel, where discussions focused on “Digital Merchants, Intelligent Markets: Unlocking Merchant Payment & Behaviour Data and AIDriven Growth for Seamless Market Expansion.”
The panel explored how AI-powered insights and merchant payment data can help businesses better understand customer behaviour, improve operational efficiency, support smarter decision-making and unlock new growth opportunities across African markets.
On the second day of the conference, OPay hosted a well-attended curated panel session titled “Leadership in the AI Era: Building Responsible and Inclusive Digital Finance.”
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Moderated by Ndubuisi Christopher, Head, Product Research, OPay, the panel featured distinguished experts, including Henry Erigha, Domain Coordinator, Innovation & Technology, FintechNGR and Founder, Edgeverve Business Solutions Ltd.; Chinasa Collins-Ogbuo, Advocacy and Inclusion For All Lead, EFInA; Akinkunmi Ogunsola, Principal Architect, NIBSS; and Korede Adewale, Head, App and Online Business, OPay.
The session examined how organisations can responsibly deploy AI while maintaining customer trust, strengthening governance, promoting financial inclusion and ensuring that innovation delivers meaningful value to consumers and businesses alike.
Panellists also discussed the leadership responsibilities required to build ethical, transparent and inclusive digital financial systems in an AI-driven future.