Optimus Bank
“Can a young Nigerian National Bank scale into the preferred digital banking platform for people and businesses across Nigeria and its diaspora corridors?”
Founded2021
HQLagos, Nigeria
Total raised$146.4M
Latest roundDebt Financing, 2026-03
IndustryBank / National
The story
Optimus Bank is a Nigerian National Bank licensed by the CBN in 2021, headquartered in Lagos with distributed workforce across Nigeria, UK, Canada and the US. It operates a full-service consumer and SME banking model (savings, corporate, SME, USSD banking via *930#), and has launched an OptimusPay virtual account product for merchant collections. As a chartered Nigerian bank, it operates its own core rails rather than sitting on top of a BaaS provider.
Last 12 months
Product timeline
2021
Optimus Bank founded and licensed as a National Bank by the Central Bank of Nigeria.· banking
2025
OptimusPay status page launched, indicating standalone payments/virtual account product line.· banking
2026
Raised $146.4M in debt financing.· funding
Regulated entities
1
regulatory licence held by Optimus Bank
Licence types, jurisdictions and registered entities are in the Embedded Finance Index report.
The stack
3 layers disclosed in Optimus Bank’s embedded-finance stack
Payments / PSP
OptimusPay (self-operated)
Banking / BaaS
in the full report
Lending
in the full report
Accounting gap: none
2 more providers across 2 layers, with confidence-scored evidence and source URLs, are in the Embedded Finance Index report.