Free Reads Africa’s Hottest IPO Broke Fintech Apps, But Jury Is Out On Whether It’s Worth It By Henry Nzekwe  |  September 17, 2026 Nigeria’s leading fintechs are high on Africa’s hottest IPO and seeing a surge in users, so much so that some buckled under the weight, but the jury is out on whether the hype is worth it. Some of the country’s major fintech players, including Bamboo, Cowrywise, Flutterwave, Moniepoint, Paga, and PiggyVest, spent weeks telling their users to buy a piece of Africa’s biggest refinery. When the doors opened on Monday, some of the apps themselves could not get through. Bamboo, one of the country’s largest digital investment platforms, opened more than 236,000 new accounts in the week before the Dangote Petroleum Refinery’s initial public offering. Traffic on its app surged to ten times normal levels within thirty minutes of the offer going live. “To be very, very honest, our system broke,” Bamboo co-founder Yanmo Omorogbe told Reuters. Cowrywise and InvestNaija reported similar failures.…