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# Optasia's revenue jumps 45%, and it now wants more than 80% to come from microloans
- URL: https://www.businessbagel.com/optasia-revenue-microloans/
- Published: 2026-11-09T03:15:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-11-09T03:14:59.000Z
- Description: The JSE-listed fintech that started out advancing airtime now makes almost three-quarters of its money from microloans.
- Author: Christian Maidman
- Tags: Companies, Business Bagel News

Optasia, the JSE-listed fintech that started out advancing airtime to people who couldn't top up their phones, grew revenue 45% to about $270 million in the nine months to September. That's roughly R4.42 billion. But airtime is no longer the main event.

## Microloans now carry the business

Its micro-financing business brought in about $194 million, up 67%, while airtime credit contributed about $75 million, up just 8%. That makes microloans about 72% of revenue and the group's main source of growth. The value moving through its platform rose 34% to about $5.1 billion, and as the average loan got bigger, the share Optasia keeps as revenue, its take rate, rose to 5.3% from 4.9%. Optasia did note that its first-half results included a foreign exchange benefit that has since largely eased. The figures come from preliminary management accounts that haven't been reviewed by auditors, and its targets for the full year are unchanged.

So how does it decide who gets a loan? Optasia describes itself as "an AI-enabled fintech platform that provides microfinancing solutions and airtime credit solutions". In practice, it uses alternative data and machine learning to identify behavioural patterns that show who is creditworthy. Its platform lets telecoms companies, banks and other partners distribute credit to their customers. Since its half-year update, it has rolled out merchant loans in Uganda and launched two banking deployments with FirstRand, a partnership Business Day says continues to deepen, while airtime credit in Nigeria has stabilised under a new multi-provider structure.

## Why lending is the bigger prize

There's plenty of room to grow. According to the World Bank, only 7% of adults in sub-Saharan Africa borrowed from mobile money providers in 2024, yet those providers accounted for nearly 60% of all formal borrowing in the region. Optasia now wants more than 80% of its revenue to come from microfinance, and its ambitions stretch to merchant financing and working capital for small businesses. Wider access to credit also raises questions about affordability, responsible lending and over-indebtedness, and Optasia is answering them in public, a year after a JSE listing that valued it at R23.5 billion. In other words, it's becoming a lender first.