Mural and Opera MiniPay Partner to Power Freelancer Payments Across Africa
The new partnership enables instant payments to millions of freelancers across Africa.
NEW YORK, September 10, 2024—Mural, the real-time payments platform, today announced a strategic partnership with Opera, the developers of MiniPay, a dollar wallet accessible via phone number. This partnership enables businesses to send instant payments to freelancers across Africa, cutting transaction times to mere seconds and reducing costs by 99%. With over 3.5 million MiniPay wallets activated since its launch in September 2023, this integration positions Mural to scale its innovative payment solutions in the rapidly growing global freelancer market.
Mural is integrating MiniPay to reduce costs and accelerate payments for African freelancers. This partnership marks the start of a broader initiative to support emerging markets where gig work is central to the economy and represents the initial phase of a worldwide expansion.
"Our integration with MiniPay represents a leap in how businesses can manage international payments to freelancers," said Sinclair Toffa, Founder and CEO at Mural. "We're not just improving the process; we're reimagining it entirely. By leveraging MiniPay's accessibility and our platform's efficiency, we're creating a payment ecosystem that works at the speed of the internet, benefiting both businesses and freelancers alike."
The Mural platform solves critical challenges in cross-border payments:
Instant Transactions: Payments are processed instantly, and freelancers can access their earnings immediately.
Cost Efficiency: By eliminating intermediaries and leveraging real-time payment technology, Mural significantly reduces transaction fees.
Scalability: Businesses can send payments to thousands of freelancers simultaneously, ensuring they are paid faster while reducing the operational burden on companies.
This partnership is already having a substantial impact. Opera News, one of Africa’s largest content platforms, recently transitioned all payments to Mural for its writers across the continent. The move has saved Opera over 30 hours per month on payment configuration, eliminating manual processes by utilizing Mural’s bulk-payout feature.
“From the beginning, MiniPay has been all about democratizing digital finance, especially for underserved communities,” said Jørgen Arnesen, EVP of Mobile at Opera. “We’ve made it simple for our users to send and store a variety of stablecoins, so we’re thrilled to eliminate more barriers and inefficiencies by similarly connecting businesses and freelancers around the world. We’re already using the Mural platform at Opera News to facilitate hassle-free monthly payments to thousands of writers around Africa.”
As the global freelance market continues to expand, this partnership, along with others, offers a seamless payment solution for large corporations managing freelancer networks, small businesses engaging international talent, and individual freelancers seeking faster, more cost-effective ways to receive payments. Following Africa, Mural plans to roll out similar initiatives in key emerging markets, further empowering freelancers and contractors worldwide.
About Mural
Mural is a global payments platform that simplifies and optimizes cross-border payments for businesses. Supporting over 48 currencies, Mural enables businesses to pay vendors, contractors, and freelancers via local bank transfers. Users can make thousands of payments in a few simple clicks. Companies can manage contractor payroll, vendor payments, and invoicing from a single global USD account with its all-in-one platform. Headquartered in New York City and founded in 2022, Mural redefines how businesses handle international payments. Sign up for a free account today at www.muralpay.com.
About Opera
Opera is a web innovator building on more than 25 years of innovation that started with the Opera web browser. While Opera is leveraging its brand and engaged user base in order to grow and develop new products and services for people who seek a better internet experience, Opera’s PC and mobile web browsers, content discovery platform Opera News, and apps dedicated to gaming, Web3 and e-commerce are already the trusted choices of hundreds of millions of active and engaged users. Opera is headquartered in Oslo, Norway, and listed on the NASDAQ Stock Exchange under the OPRA ticker symbol. Download and access Opera’s products and services from www.opera.com.
