…As regulators push to end years of market dominance
As Nigerian regulators move to liberalise the country’s lucrative airtime credit lending market after years of dominance by a single operator, attention is increasingly turning to the billionaire entrepreneur whose company built one of the most profitable digital lending businesses across emerging markets.
At the centre of the debate is Bassim Haidar, the Nigerian-born Lebanese businessman who founded Channel VAS, the telecommunications value-added services company that later evolved into fintech giant Optasia.
Over the years, Optasia emerged as one of the most influential players in Nigeria’s airtime credit and mobile lending ecosystem, partnering with mobile network operators to provide airtime and data advances to millions of subscribers. The model proved highly successful, helping the company expand across Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America while generating substantial revenues from one of Africa’s largest telecom markets.
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