Optasia CEO Salvador Anglada. The fast-growing financial infrastructure platform company that focuses on underbanked customers in emerging markets has beat its financial growth forecasts for its 2025 financial year.
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Optasia, the financial infrastructure platform serving underbanked customers in emerging markets, exceeded the guidance it gave to investors at its JSE listing in November, with revenue up 76% to $265.4 million, well ahead of its 40% target.
Adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation increased by 52% to $115 million (R1,95 billion) for the year to December 31. The total number of users interacting with the group’s services increased by 43% year-on-year, surpassing 432 million.
CEO Salvador Anglada said in an interview the results were “outstanding” and growth was driven by expansion into additional markets, stronger utilisation across partner ecosystems, and onboarding of new distribution partners, together with the development of new financial services capabilities on the platform.
“2025 was transformative for Optasia. We successfully completed our listing on the JSE and welcomed FirstRand as a strategic shareholder. These milestones provide a strong validation of our operating model and growth trajectory and significantly enhance our visibility and credibility as a leading global fintech,” said Anglada.
He said that apart from FirstRand’s strategic 20% shareholding in Optasia, they envisaged that many synergies and opportunities would arise, such as, for instance, through the provision of micro-finance facilities to FirstRand clients in the markets where the banking group operates. FirstRand would also support Optasia through its growth phase.
Optasia reported strong operational performance in 2025, with market share and customer adoption rate gains. The geographic footprint is being expanded across Africa and in Asia, while service penetration is being deepened in existing markets, said Anglada.
Eight new deployments were launched in the year, with microfinancing solutions (MFS) expanding into new markets including Cameroon, Ghana, and Congo-Brazzaville, and Airtime Credit Solutions (ACS) into markets including Liberia, Eswatini, and Malaysia.
“Entering 2026, we are confident in our ability to deliver robust revenue and earnings growth primarily through further expansion in mobile financial services,” he said.
He said they were targeting 30% topline growth and 40% growth in net profit in the new year.
MFS continued to grow strongly during the past year, with revenue up 149% year-on-year. MFS now accounts for 63% of group revenue.
Airtime Credit Solutions remains a core service within the platform, supporting customer engagement and a key entry point into broader financial services. ACS revenues increased 17,4% year-on-year.
Annual credit facilitated for Optasia’s business partners increased substantially by 44% to $5,5bn. The group also improved monetisation across its platform, with the take rate increasing to 4,8% from 4%, reflecting the growing contribution of MFS.
The adjusted EBITDA margin fell slightly to 43,2% from 49,% due to costs from micro-lending. “This shift reflects the deliberate strategic evolution toward micro-finance services which have stronger underlying unit economics and higher profit per unit of distribution.”
Earnings were impacted by one-off costs associated with the listing. Excluding these non-recurring items, normalised net income increased 57,1% to $57,8m.
Net working capital increased to $107,2m from $65,8m, equivalent to 40.4% of revenue, in line with the 40% guided at IPO. This was driven by strong growth in MFS revenues, where invoicing and collection cycles are typically longer.
Optasia continued to scale while the default rate remained low at 1.2%, in line with IPO guidance, which accounts for the accelerated scaling of micro-lending services.
Anglada said their geographic expansion was supported by their ecosystem-led approach, which brings together mobile network operators, mobile money providers, digital banks, and financial institutions to enable financial access at true scale.
Ongoing investment and advances in AI and machine learning were expected to further amplify the group’s capabilities. The group also planned to broaden the functionality of its platform and develop complementary products to meet diverse local market needs.
Optasia acquired Finergi Global FZCO (Finergi) for $30m. Finergi is a technology company that provides real-time credit access through prepaid electricity systems, enabling it to transform essential services into a platform for financial inclusion.
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