Optasia

Optasia is an AI-led fintech platform that provides micro-financing and airtime credit to consumers in emerging markets. Founded in 2012, the company operates a B2B2X model: it supplies the technology and credit infrastructure that mobile operators and financial institutions use to offer loans and airtime credit to their own customers. Its platform covers the full lending chain, from credit scoring and decisioning through disbursement and collection, on proprietary AI-driven technology and data analytics.

The company works across 38 countries in Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Europe, serving more than 120 million customers monthly and reaching an addressable base of over 860 million subscribers. It has partnerships with 49 mobile operators and 13 financial institutions. In 2024 approximately US $3.8 billion in consumer loans were distributed through the platform, which the company reports has delivered exceptionally low default rates.

Technical work at Optasia spans artificial intelligence, machine learning, credit scoring and decisioning, data analytics, digital lending and disbursement, and collections automation. Products include consumer micro-loans distributed through mobile operator and financial institution partners, airtime credit delivered via operator partnerships, and the end-to-end B2B2X financial services platform itself. In 2025 the company listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, Sub-Saharan Africa's first fintech IPO.

Optasia describes its mission as enabling financial access for the next billion customers.