
Opera: Phantom of the Turnaround - gjm11
https://hindenburgresearch.com/opera-phantom-of-the-turnaround/
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gjm11
The title (which is that of the article itself) may not be very informative,
so here's a brief summary.

Allegedly Opera, faced with declining usage of its web browser, has turned to
an entirely different business model: predatory lending in poor countries. It
does this via a number of mobile apps, whose appstore descriptions claim a
reasonable APR but which actually end up offering only very short-term loans,
charging at least 1% interest _per day_ with hefty extra fees (and other
dubious practices) for borrowers who are even slightly late in repaying.

The OP is an article from a company that "specializes in forensic financial
research". They suggest that aside from any moral concerns one might have
about this line of business, it is likely to be financially disastrous for
Opera because (1) the default rates are terrifying and (2) their lending apps
are in gross violation of Google's policies and they're likely to find
themselves kicked out of the Google Play store.

And allegedly Opera's chairman and CEO has been involved in at least one
similar business before, which did similar things and failed in much the way
Hindenburg Research predicts that Opera will now fail.

