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Claim: Facebook user asserts that there is trouble in the Opay office as The Central Bank of Nigeria has announced the liquidation and closure of the bank.
Verdict: False! CBN also told the news agency that it was false. Opay also released a statement to refute it.
Full Text
OPay is a one-stop mobile-based platform for payments, transfers, loans, savings, and other essential services. Currently, OPay boasts over 35+ million registered app users and 500,000 agents in Nigeria who rely on OPay’s services to send and receive money, pay bills, and many more.
Nwanonenyi Ndigbo, on Facebook, alleged that The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has announced the liquidation and closure of Opay Bank. This is due to footage circulating on WhatsApp and other pages on Instagram and Facebook. The claim can also be found here, here.
The video shows a mild commotion in the bank. People could be seen demanding their money from the bank staff. The video’s caption reads, “Please be careful of Opay.”
The virality of the post and the possible implications for the financial institution and society at large made DUBAWA decide to verify it
Verification
We conducted a keyword search to see if reputable media organisations had reported the situation but could not find anything concerning the story. However, we saw a recent Premium Times post with the headline, “CBN debunks viral news suspending OPAY, PALMPAY.”
We contacted OPay on their X handle for a statement, and they explained that the claim was false and that the general public should disregard it. We also saw that they had issued a disclaimer on the video circulating.
In their statement, they noted that the bank’s issues were the result of an industry-wide solution and had been fixed.
OPAY stated, “The post mentioning the CBN shutting down our operations is false and misleading to the general public.”
CBN’s Acting Director of Corporate Communications, Isa AbdulMumin, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Friday that the viral news “is simply fake.’’
DUBAWA also checked the list of licensed Mobile Money Operators in Nigeria on the Central Bank’s page, and OPay is still on the list.
Conclusion
The claim that CBN announced the closure of Opay Bank is false. No media organisation reported the news of the closure. Opay, through their X page, refuted the claim. CBN also told the news agency that it was false.
